lU 


and  the  Great  Powers 


ill' 


1' 


J' 


rf"!" 


!        I 


!8  t : 

mm 


II    I      I    ill!  I 


'  i 


! 


l!  1 


]l''.\',ly.\'- 


li-ilili 


ill  ifes 


lilliSli  IJIIJIil 

1  i  l|  Ii  ■:  iiiiii 


ii!lli: 


Sill!  uy„. 


Mm 


ll!'  i! 


!Hii 


r  jc  I  wi^  X  ^  J 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/belgiumgreatpoweOOwaxwrich 


By  Emile  Waxweiler 


Belgium  Neutral  and  Loyal 
Belgium  and  the  Great  Powers 


Belgium 


and 

The  Great  Powers 

Her  Neutrality  Explained  and  Vindicated 
By 

Emile  Waxweiler 

Director  of  the  Solvay  Institute  of  Sociology  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Brussels.     Member  of  the  Royal 
Academy  of  Belgium 

Author  of  "  Belgium,  Neutral  and  Loyal,"  etc. 


G,  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  and   London 

Zbc    Icnicfietbocftec    press 

1916 


3*^ 


Copyright,  igit 

BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

KISTORY^l 


Ubc  -Rnfcftcrbocftet  press,  flew  ISotft 


PREFACE 

Of  the  incidents  which  marked  the  beginning 
of  the  European  War,  none  was  certainly  more 
unexpected  than  the  press  and  pamphlet 
campaign  organized  in  Germany  against  Bel- 
gium, as  soon  as  the  Belgian  resistance  became 
known. 

A  campaign  of  silence.     The  public  was  left 

in  ignorance  of  all  that  would  have  represented 

Belgium's    attitude    in    its    true    light.     The 

communication  to  the  press  of  the  German  Note 

of  the  2d  of  August  demanding  passage  through 

Belgian  territory  was  delayed  until  the  8th  of 

August.    The  Belgian  Government's  reply  was 

not  made  known,  even  in  the  two  official  White 

Books.    Although  this  reply  was  transmitted 

the  very  night  of  the  2d  to  the  3d  of  August,  the 

truth  is  either  simply  denied,  as  in  the  following 
iii 


38G626 


iv  Preface 

words  printed  after  the  German  Note:  **This 
note  remained  unanswered''  {''auf  diese  Note 
erfolgte  keine  AfitivorV'),  {Urkunden^  Depeschen 
und  Berichte  der  Frankfurter  Zeitung,  p.  87), 
or  a  sheer  falsehood  is  invented  as  in  the  state- 
ment: ''To  this  Note,  Belgium  replied  by  a  de- 
claration of  war*'  {''Belgien  antwortete  darauf  mit 
der  Kriegserkldrung^') y  {Die  Wahrheit  ilher  den 
Kriegy  a  pamphlet  published  by  a  group  of 
Notables,  p.  10). 

A  campaign  of  calumny.  The  Belgian  popu- 
lation is  ''bloodthirsty"  (official  message  to  the 
President  of  the  United  States);  the  German 
civilians  remaining  in  Belgium  are  being  massa- 
cred ;  the  German  soldiers  are  being  harried  by 
an  abominable  civilian  war  of  Jrancs-tireurs; 
the  woimded  are  being  tortured.  The  Belgian 
Government  is  responsible  for  all  these  excesses ; 
it  has  led  the  country  into  war  by  its  adven- 
turous and  treacherous  policy;  it  had  long  been 
bound  to  England  and  France  and  it  had  now 
handed  Belgium  over  to  these  Powers,  to  help 


Preface  v 

them  to  carry  out  their  hostile  plans  against 
Germany. 

Belgitim,  at  first  astonished,  defended  herself: 
the  Government,  the  authorities,  the  clergy, 
and  poUtical  writers  have  patiently  dealt  with 
these  imputations  and  have  shown  their  abso- 
lute want  of  foundation. 

It  might  have  been  supposed  that  the 
campaign  would  come  to  an  end  and  that  it  had 
perhaps  only  been  an  effect  of  the  feverish 
exaltation  in  the  early  days  of  the  war. 

Not  at  all.  Hostility  has  not  abated:  dis- 
tinguished university  men  have  lent  it  their 
authority;  administrative  inquiries  have  been 
instituted;  official  publications  and  pamphlets 
of  a  semi-official  character  have  been  scattered 
broadcast  in  neutral  countries. 

In  view  of  the  persistency  of  these  attacks, 
we  have  to  ask  ourselves  whether  we  must 
leave  the  field  to  our  accusers. 

For  a  large  number  of  people,  Belgium  no 
longer  needs  to  be  defended:  their  convictions 


vi  Preface 

are  steadfast.  But  for  others  whose  scruples 
are  more  obstinate,  or  whose  judgment  has 
been  taken  unawares,  silence  might  seem  to 
give  consent. 

It  is  essential  that  Belgium  should  emerge 
from  this  struggle  untarnished — that  her  name 
in  history  should  be  free  from  any  slur. 

The  main  charges  which  have  of  late  been 
formulated  against  Belgium  will,  therefore,  be 
discussed  in  the  following  pages.  They  may 
be  classified,  I  think,  imder  three  principal 
indictments: 

I. — ''From  the  standpoint  of  wise  policy 
Belgium's  resistance  is  incomprehensible." 

II. — ''Belgium  resisted  because  she  was 
pledged." 

III. — "Belgium  was  not  called  upon  to 
resist,  for  her  territory  was  not  inviolable.  *' 

I  shall  examine  the  indictment  from  these 
three  points  of  view,  using  documents  and  other 
first-hand  evidence  which  in  several  cases  have 
not  yet  been  made  public. 


Preface  vii 

I  have  already,  in  a  former  publication  {La 
Belgigue  neutre  et  loyale)  undertaken  to  defend 
my  country  against  the  assaults  of  calumny. 
A  year  has  passed:  upon  no  point,  however 
small,  has  it  been  possible  to  contradict  the 
facts  set  forth  in  that  work.  What  I  have  still 
to  say  is  an  addition  to  what  I  have  already 
said,  and  neither  corrects  nor  modifies  it  in 
any  respect. 

E.  W. 

March,  1916. 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Preface iii 

A  campaign  of  silence  and  a  campaign  of  calumny 
against  Belgium  in  Germany  (p.  iii) — The  three  principal 
charges  in  the  indictment  (p.  vi). 

I. — "  From  the  standpoint  of  a  wise  policy, 
Belgium's  resistance  is  incomprehensible  ''         i 

General  reflections  and  allusions  to  the  recent 
events  in  the  Balkans  (p.  2) — How  inconsistent 
these  are  with  facts  (p.  6) — The  formation  of 
Independent  Belgium  and  the  patriotism  of  the 
Belgians  (p.  8) — How,  since  the  beginnings  of 
Independence,  a  policy  of  equilibrium  appeared  to 
be  the  first  condition  of  the  life  of  the  nation  (p. 
13) — International  incidents  between  1840  and 
the  first  years  of  the  twentieth  century  (p.  15) — 
The  refusal  of  Germany's  demand  for  a  free  pas- 
sage on  the  2d  of  August,  1914,  was  in  accord  with 
the  true  tradition  of  Belgium's  foreign  policy 
since  1830  (p.  31) — The  parallels  with  Serbia  and 
Greece  unsupported  either  by  law  or  by  fact 
(p.  39) — The  fate  of  small  States  (p.  42). 

II. — "  Belgium  resisted,  because   she   was 
already  pledged  " 44 

The  methods  by  which  Belgium's  accusers  wrest 
the  facts  from  their  natural  interpretation  (p.  46) 


Contents 


— The  garbling  of  texts  in  the  report  of  the  Chief 
of  the  Belgian  Staff  on  the  subject  of  his  conver- 
sations with  the  English  military  attach^  in  1906 
(p.  60) — Inscription  on  the  envelope  (p.  62) — 
Analysis  of  the  report  (p.  66) — Experimental  jour- 
neys of  the  Belgian  General  Staff  from  1906  to 
1910  (p.  75) — ^Another  reading  of  the  accusation: 
Belgiima  gave  England  a  monopoly  of  military 
information  (p.  77) — An  unexpected  precedent: 
step  taken  by  the  German  military  attache  in  1875 
(p.  80) — The  Belgian  diplomatic  correspondence 
published  in  Berlin  proves  that  the  conversations 
of  1906  had  no  influence  on  Belgian  policy  (p.  83) 
— The  speech  of  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs 
in  the  Belgian  Senate  in  1909  (p.  96) — Another 
accusation:  Belgium  ought  to  have  informed 
Germany  of  the  interview  with  the  English  mili- 
tary attache  in  19 12  (p.  100) — This  accusation  is 
contrary  to  the  facts:  an  account  of  what  the 
Belgian  Government  did  after  the  interview  of 
1912:  its  action  in  London  (p.  108) — Its  action  in 
Berlin  (p.  no) — Its  action  in  Paris  (p.  112) — The 
Congo  and  Belgian  foreign  policy  (p.  115) — On  the 
eve  of  war,  Belgium  was  preparing  for  the  renewal 
of  her  treaty  of  commerce  with  Germany  (p.  1 1 5) — 
Conclusion  (p.  116). 


in.—"  Belgium  was  not  called  upon  to  resist 
for  her  territory  was  not  inviolable  *'  .         .118 

Belgium  was  mistaken,  it  is  said,  in  regarding 
herself  as  obliged  by  the  terms  of  the  treaties  to 
withstand  the  passage  of  the  German  armies 
(p.  1 19) — Was  the  neutralization  of  the  country 
in  1839  compatible  with  an  obligation  of  free 
passage,  established  for  the  benefit  of  one  of  the 


I 


I 


Contents  xi 


Powers?  (p.  121 ) — ^Analysis  of  the  principal  proto- 
cols of  the  London  Conference  in  1 830-1 831 
(p.  122) — The  true  meaning  of  the  neutralization 
of  Belgium  from  the  point  of  view  of  European 
equilibrium  (p.  123) — Permanent  neutrality  in- 
volved ipso  facto  inviolability  of  territory  (p.  131) 
— After  as  before  the  modification  of  text  which 
was  made  between  the  Treaty  of  the  26th  of  June, 
1 83 1,  and  that  of  the  15th  November  following, 
events  justified  this  conclusion  (p.  134) — Refuta- 
tion of  the  conjecture  based  on  the  Fortresses 
Convention:  the  previous  agreement  of  the  four 
Powers  on  the  17th  of  April,  1831  (p.  139) — 
Belgium's  part  in  the  negotiations  (p.  142) — The 
secret  clause  and  its  true  significance  (p.  144) — 
Why  the  wording  of  the  Treaty  of  June  was  modi- 
fied (p.  149). 

Last  Words 155 

Unpublished  note  of  the  Grand  Headquarters 
Staff  of  the  French  Armies  of  the  East  showing  the 
baseless  character  of  the  imputations  according  to 
which  French  troops  crossed  the  Belgian  frontier 
before  the  appeal  addressed  by  Belgium  to  her 
guarantors  (p.  159) — Another  decisive  testimony 
to  Belgium's  loyalty  in  the  organization  of  her 
defence:  the  Belgian  army  kept  its  positions  of 
concentration  until  the  evening  of  the  3d  to  the 
4th  of  August  as  they  had  been  chosen  in  con- 
formity with  the  obligations  imposed  upon  the 
country  by  its  neutrality  (p.  173) — A  few  words 
upon  the  conduct  of  the  German  troops  in  Belgium, 
and  upon  the  alleged  popular  war  which  they  say 
they  had  to  repress  (p.  180) — Conclusion  (p.  185). 


Belgium  and  the  Great 
Powers 


CHAPTER  I 

**FROM    THE    STANDPOINT    OF    A    WISE    POLICY 
BELGIUM'S  RESISTANCE  IS  INCOM- 
PREHENSIBLE** 

When  after  carefully  reading  the  various  pub- 
lications directed  against  Belgium's  foreign  pol- 
icy, we  seek  a  reason  for  the  insistence  which 
characterizes  their  indictment,  we  perceive 
that  the  basis  of  all  these  criticisms  is  a  state 
of  mind  not  uncommon  in  many  neutral  circles: 
one  of  profound  astonishment,  of  bafHed  curi- 
osity, which  expresses  itself  thus:  **How  is  it 
possible    that    Belgium,    when    requested    by 


■2    '  :\.;;'^\*..*  Belgium  and 

Germany  merely  to  allow  her  territory  to  be 
crossed,  should  not  have  seen  her  way  to  ac- 
qiiiesce?  By  resisting,  Belgium  adopted  an 
attitude  which,  from  the  standpoint  of  wise 
policy,  cannot  really  be  justified.*' 

When  a  wise  policy  obtains,  it  is  explained, 
a  State,  which  has  attained  maturity,  no  longer 
believes  in  chimeras.  Will  Belgiimi  ingenu- 
ously maintain  that  she  preserved  a  robust 
faith  in  international  engagements  sanctioned 
by  treaties?  But,  it  will  be  said,  as  for  instance 
in  the  semi-official  pamphlet,  Belgian  Neutrality^ 
— printed  at  Berlin  (Stilke)  and  widely  circulated 
in  all  languages  in  neutral  countries, — Belgium 
ought  to  have  been  the  first  to  know  that  the 
very  treaty  which  created  her  and  which  she  is 
so  fond  of  invoking,  the  neutralization  treaty 
of  1839,  had  been  discredited  by  a  distinguished 
representative  of  the  Power  most  interested  in 
defending  it.  In  1870,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
agreements  concluded  between  England,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  France  and  Germany  on  the 


The  Great  Powers  3 

other,  regarding  the  question  of  the  violation 
of  Belgian  territory,  Mr.  Gladstone  plainly 
declared  in  the  House  of  Commons,  invoking 
the  authority  of  Lord  Aberdeen  and  Lord  Pal- 
merston:  "  Before  binding  its  policy  to  a  pledge 
of  protection  given  to  a  third  party,  a  country 
must  have  regard  to  the  particular  situation  in 
which  it  finds  itself  at  the  moment  when  the 
pledge  is  called  upon  to  come  into  effect."  Such 
a  declaration  was  well  calculated  to  remind  Bel- 
gium that  treaties  are  only  valid  so  far  as 
political  necessities,  varying  with  times  and 
circumstances,  can  be  reconciled  with  them. 

Or  did  Belgium  honestly  imagine  that  a 
State  must  aspire  to  a  heroic  line  of  action  and 
sacrifice  its  well-considered  interests  to  a  theatri- 
cal attitude?  But — we  may  read  in  the  Ger- 
man Press  and  even  in  the  neutral  Press — a 
State  is  above  all  a  concatenation  of  collective 
necessities;  it  is  answerable  to  future  generations 
for  the  discernment  it  shows,  in  grave  emergen- 
cies, in  distinguishing  essential,  dominant  con- 


4  Belgium  and 

siderations,  from  those  which  are  ephemeral 
and  episodical.  Should  the  rulers  of  Belgium 
have  indulged  in  diplomatic  dialectics,  when 
they  found  themselves  violently  hurled  into 
the  prologue  of  a  drama  in  which  the  destiny 
of  Europe  was  to  be  staked?  Ought  not  fore- 
sight to  have  led  them,  if  not  to  side  with  the 
neighbour  whose  power  was,  upon  the  whole,  en- 
sured against  any  lasting  diminution  of  strength, 
at  least  to  manage  in  such  a  way  as  to  save 
appearances  and  spare  the  country  the  havoc 
of  war? 

All  these  reflections  have  been  given  special 
force  by  the  events  which  have  happened  in 
the  Balkans.  An  astonishing  variety  of  argu- 
ments has  been  drawn  from  these. 

Serbia,  we  are  told,  also  preferred  the  "roman- 
tic" policy  of  alliance  with  the  Entente  to  a 
'* realistic"  policy,  and  by  a  just  turn  of  for- 
tune, she  has  shared  the  fate  of  Belgium. 

Bulgaria,  on  the  other  hand,  subordinated 
every   other  consideration   to   the  imperative 


The  Great  Powers  5 

realization  of  claims  which  she  knew  how  to 
place  under  the  patronage  of  the  whole  of 
Europe. 

Finally,  Greece,  who,  solicited  like  Belgium, 
to  maintain  a  '* benevolent  neutrality'*  towards 
certain  Powers,  manoeuvres  in  such  a  way 
that,  while  not  repulsing  this  invitation,  she 
has  not  alienated  the  sympathies  of  the  enemies 
of  those  who  are  pressing  her. 

And  our  critics  proceed  to  generalize:  the 
evolution  of  nations  has  its  laws.  In  our  epoch, 
it  imposes  upon  the  small  States  a  political 
attitude  which  they  can  only  avoid  at  the  peril 
of  their  existence;  too  weak  to  hinder  the  in- 
evitable consolidating  movement  of  the  great 
States,  the  small  States  must  resolutely  make  a 
choice  among  the  forces  which  will  divide  the 
world,  and  direct  their  policy  in  accordance 
with  their  choice.  In  the  same  way,  in  the 
economic  evolution,  small  enterprises  allow 
themselves  to  be  polarized  by  great  enterprises, 
and   are  satisfied  with   the  autonomy   which 


6  Belgium  and 

they  keep  in  a  constellation  of  co-ordinated 
interests. 

Briefly  then,  according  to  many,  Belgium, 
in  opposing  the  passage  of  the  German  troops 
across  her  territory,  committed  so  flagrant  a 
political  mistake  that  it  is  not  reasonably  pos- 
sible to  impute  it  to  her,  and  that  her  incon- 
ceivable attitude  must  be  attributed  to  other 
causes.  The  explanation  of  Belgium's  resist- 
ance by  her  supposed  connivance  with  Ger- 
many's adversaries  would  thus  acquire  great 
plausibility. 


Now  all  these  arguments  are  specious,  for 
they  leave  the  essential  truths  in  obscurity. 

Belgium  would  certainly  be  inexcusable,  if 
she  had  subjugated  her  policy  to  some  narrow 
and  ostentatious  diplomatic  doctrinairism,  if, 
in  fact,  she  had  acted  from  mere  Quixotism. 
How  different  is  the  reality ! 

It  is  easy  to  assert,  like  Mr.  Richard  Grass- 


The  Great  Powers  7 

hoff  {Belgium's  Guilt:  a  Reply  to  Professor 
Waocweiler;  French  Translation,  Berlin,  1915, 
Reimer),  that  **the  much  disputed  question  of 
the  violation  of  Belgian  neutrality  plays  but  a 
secondary  part  in  the  enquiry  as  to  responsibil- 
ity for  the  disastrous  fate  with  which  the  War 
has  afflicted  Belgium  ...  if  nevertheless,*'  he 
adds,  **this  question  still  assumes  in  the  eyes  of 
many  persons,  including  Mr.  Waxweiler,  an 
importance  that  is  quite  out  of  date,  it  must  be 
attributed  to  these  two  plausible  motives:  it  is 
thought  possible,  by  long  dissertations  upon  a 
secondary  subject,  to  divert  public  attention 
from  the  main  object,  and,  by  an  unceasing  hue 
and  cry  against  Germany's  treason,  it  is  hoped 
to  arouse  universal  commiseration  and  to  win 
the  sympathies  of  other  peoples  whose  neutral- 
ity is  guaranteed"  (p.  6). 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  on  the  contrary,  every- 
thing turns  upon  Belgian  neutrality,  and  if  the 
accusers  of  my  country  persist  in  discovering 
dishonest  and  perfidious  motives  in  her  acts, 


8  Belgium  and 

it  is  because  they  do  not  wish  to  examine  the 
question  calmly  and  without  prejudice. 

On  the  night  of  the  2d  of  August,  1914,  faced 
by  Germany's  threatening  Note,  Brussels  did 
not  need  long  hours  of  deliberation:  there  was 
no  tergiversation,  no  hesitation.  Bluff!  say 
her  accusers.  Evidence  of  political  continuity, 
reply  those  who  know  the  history  of  Belgian 
neutrality  since  1839. 

For  one  has  only  to  read  this  history  to  see 
that  the  resistance  of  1914,  dictated  to  the 
Belgians  by  a  spontaneous  sentiment  of  hon- 
our, was  also  the  logical  outcome  of  the  whole 
tradition  of  their  national  policy;  nay,  more, 
that  this  policy  was  imposed  by  a  clear  con- 
sciousness of  the  only  conditions  under  which 
Belgium  could  exist  as  an  independent  nation. 

From  the  time  when  the  European  States 
were  formed  until  the  revolution  of  1830,  Bel- 
gium had  been  refused  the  right  of  existence. 
Although,  according  to  Charles  V.,  ''the  in- 
habitants of  this  country  could  not  suffer  the 


The  Great  Powers  9 

government  of  foreigners/*  during  long  cen- 
turies they  had  not  succeeded  in  liberating 
themselves  from  it:  the  rival  appetites  of  the 
great  Powers  were  too  keen  around  their  pro- 
vinces, which  unwearied  toil  persisted  in  enrich- 
ing, in  spite  of  the  devastation  of  ever-recurrent 
wars.  Independence  was  hard  to  conquer. 
But  in  the  course  of  ceaseless  struggles,  Belgian 
nationality  had  undergone  the  strong  tempering 
of  time  and,  from  the  moment  she  was  able  to 
enjoy  liberty,  she  fotmd  in  herself  an  astonishing 
force  of  expansion. 

This  people  had  had  neither  the  unifying 
force  of  a  common  language,  nor  the  protection 
of  geographical  limits,  nor  the  restraint  of 
traditional  authority  to  support  its  consolida- 
tion; it  had  buffeted  through  four  centuries  of 
foreign  dominations  and  of  revolts;  Europe 
had  granted  it  autonomy  only  while  forcing  it 
into  isolation  by  the  side  of  powerful  and  rival 
neighbours, — yet  this  people,  once  in  control 
of  its  own  destinies,  gave  itself  institutions  of 


lo  Belgium  and 

such  a  kind  that,  for  two  generations,  they 
have  been  cited  by  other  nations  as  models  to 
imitate.  It  made  the  experiment  of  its  con- 
temporary constitutional  liberties  under  the 
eyes — at  first  mocking,  then  surprised — of  the 
friends  of  the  Restoration,  and  this  at  a  time 
when  the  great  neighbouring  countries  were 
hardly  attempting  to  practise  a  form  of  govern- 
ment which  Belgium  by  its  wisdom,  its  spirit  of 
progress  and  of  conservation,  has  helped  to 
induce  Europe  to  accept.  At  the  same  time 
this  people  had,  when  hardly  constituted,  to 
undergo,  first  among  the  nations  on  the  Con- 
tinent, the  terrible  social  upheaval  with  which 
the  new  industrialism  had  already  made  Eng- 
land tremble.  More  densely  concentrated  upon 
its  little  piece  of  territory  than  all  the  other 
peoples  of  the  world,  it  soon  found  itself  face 
to  face  with  all  the  problems  of  the  democratic 
organization  of  the  masses  of  today.  And 
during  these  eighty-five  years  nothing  has 
disturbed  its  cohesion  or  lessened  its  vigour. 


The  Great  Powers  ii 

We  shall  not  be  accused  of  lacking  that 
modesty  which  becomes  every  patriot  when  we 
recall  how  often  people  came  from  abroad  to 
study  Belgian  institutions,  to  watch  the  experi- 
ments of  proportional  representation,  of  the 
compulsory  vote  and  the  secret  ballot,  to  ob- 
serve the  results  of  legislation  upon  workmen's 
dwellings,  upon  popular  savings,  and  upon 
mutual  aid.  Many  things  were  still  imperfect, 
but  how  many  others  had,  from  the  first,  the 
mark  of  healthy  originality ! 

In  spite  of  all  this,  there  has  been  an  attempt 
among  petty,  pedantic,  and  impertinent  persons 
in  Germany  to  collect  small  facts  tending  to 
cast  doubt  upon  the  patriotism  of  the  Belgians, 
nay,  even  upon  the  foundations  of  their  nation- 
ality. Under  cover  of  the  silence  to  which 
opinion  has  been  condemned  in  my  country 
for  the  last  eighteen  months,  they  have  thought 
that  they  could,  without  fear  of  reply,  distort 
the  facts  by  adducing  fragmentary  documents, 
by  quoting  authorities  to  whom  Belgian  public 


12  Belgium  and 

opinion  attached  no  weight  whatever,  and  by 
setting  up  as  judges,  cranks  who  had  never 
represented  any  feeling  but  their  own.  The 
Swiss  Press  has  dealt  so  faithfully  with  the 
most  contemptible  of  these  pamphlets  (Belgian 
Neutrality  and  Swiss  Neutrality^  by  Eduard 
Blocher,  Zurich  and  Geneva,  1915,  in  the  series 
of  Stimmen  im  Sturm  aus  der  deutschen  Schweiz) 
that  I  should  be  sorry  to  denounce  them  in  any 
other  way. 

But  I  have  the  right  to  ask  these  men  who 
write  in  the  language  which  so  many  great 
minds  have  employed  to  build  up  history  anew 
what  they  know  themselves  of  the  history  of 
Belgium.  They  speak  with  disdain  of  the 
patriotic  sense  of  the  Belgians:  which,  among 
them,  knows  anything  of  the  spirit  which  ani- 
mated the  Belgians  from  1830  to  1880?  Which 
of  them  was  present  at  the  great  national  com- 
memorations of  1880  and  of  1905?  Which  of 
them  felt  the  thrill  which  ran  through  the 
crowd  in  the  Place  Poelaert  at  Brussels,  on 


The  Great  Powers  13 

the  day  of  the  festivities  commemorating  the 
seventy-fifth  anniversary  of  Belgian  Independ- 
ence? Which  of  them  has  read  the  numerous 
collections  in  which  all  the  representatives  of 
Belgian  thought,  with  one  accord,  recalled 
with  suppressed  pride  what  their  country  had 
become  in  seventy-five  years  and  why  they  loved 
it?  Which  of  them,  lastly,  was  present  at  the 
Joyeuse  Entree  of  King  Albert  and  Queen  Eliz- 
abeth into  all  the  Belgian  towns  and  under- 
stood a  unity  so  spontaneous  and  so  complete 
that  the  red  flag  unfurled  itself  frankly  side 
by  side  with  the  tricolour? 

It  is  hard  to  conceal  our  contempt  for  their 
efforts  to  deny  to  neutral  countries  the  greatest 
factor  in  the  whole  history  of  Belgium:  the  will 
to  live. 

The  will  of  the  nation  to  live:  this  has  been 
the  directing  force  of  Belgium's  foreign  policy. 

As  my  Brussels  colleague,  Professor  Nys, 
recalled,  fifteen  years  ago,  in  the  Revue  de 
Droit    International   (volume    xxxii.,    p.    608): 


14  Belgium  and 

''Belgium  had  herself  acquired  and  asserted 
her  independence,  and  therefore  the  fact  that 
she  is  a  State  was  by  no  means  the  result  of  a 
gracious  act  on  the  part  of  the  Powers.  She 
existed  as  a  Sovereign  State  when  the  *  Belgian 
question*  came  before  the  European  Concert. 
.  .  .  The  sovereignty  of  a  State  and  its  inde- 
pendence, the  consequence  of  this  sovereignty, 
in  no  way  depend  upon  the  good  pleasure  of  the 
other  States  and  have  no  need  to  be  recognized 
by  the  latter/'  Taking  its  stand  in  this  way 
upon  elements  which  had  a  sound  natural  basis, 
the  foreign  policy  of  Belgium  applied  itself  to 
safeguarding  the  right  of  the  nation  to  exist. 

Now  from  the  first  days  of  the  reign  of  Leo- 
pold I.,  the  Sovereign  and  his  Government  had 
to  impress  upon  their  minds  this  dominating 
fact:  if  they  wanted  to  guarantee  the  Hfe  of  the 
country,  it  was  necessary  to  give  it  a  clearly 
independent  position  with  regard  to  the  three 
Powers  whose  proximity  surrounded  it  with 
jealous  influences.    For  Belgium  the  first  con- 


The  Great  Powers  15 

dition  of  life  was  the  balance  of  power,  not  so 
much,  say,  neutrality,  the  formula  of  doctrine, 
as  equilibrium,  the  rule  of  action.  Every  tend- 
ency to  favour  one  of  the  Powers  at  the  expense 
of  the  other  two  inclined  public  opinion,  by 
virtue  of  a  true  collective  intuition,  in  the  con- 
trary direction;  every  blow  struck  by  one  of 
the  Powers  at  the  national  sovereignty  led  to 
a  clear  understanding  with  the  others.  In  the 
same  way,  a  mechanical  system  resting  on 
three  supports  one  of  which  should  happen  to 
give  way,  would  only  be  maintained  if  it  righted 
itself  in  the  direction  of  the  other  two. 

The  external  danger  was  unceasing.  The 
Powers  were  on  the  watch  for  the  slightest  sign 
of  solicitude  or  of  hostility  of  which  Belgium 
might  be  the  object;  what  is  more,  to  this  recip- 
rocal distrust  was  often  added  the  undisguised 
intention  of  striking  a  blow  at  the  autonomy 
of  the  country.  It  was  only  by  vigilant  firm- 
ness that  the  Belgian  Government  succeeded 
in  escaping  such  perils.     In  1840  already,  King 


i6  Belgium  and 

Leopold  I.,  in  a*  speech  addressed  to  the  Senate, 
formtdated  the  maxim  which  was  to  sum  up 
the  whole  of  Belgian  policy,  in  its  combined 
prudence  and  energy:  ''To  maintain  a  sincere, 
loyal,  and  strong  neutrality  must  be  our  con- 
stant aim."  It  was  in  similar  terms  that, 
twenty-six  years  later,  on  the  morrow  of  the 
European  crisis  of  1866,  his  successor,  Leopold 
II.,  expressed  himself  at  the  opening  of  the 
legislative  session:  ''In  the  midst,'*  said  the 
King,  "of  the  grave  events  which  have  troubled 
a  great  part  of  Eiu-ope,  Belgiimi  has  remained 
calm,  confident,  and  deeply  impressed  with 
the  rights  and  duties  of  a  neutrality  which  she 
will  maintain  in  the  future  as  in  the  past,  sincere, 
loyal,  and  strong." 

But  even  this  extremely  correct  policy 
aroused  suspicion.  "Neutrality  is  not  impo- 
tence," the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  had  writ- 
ten in  1840,  in  a  diplomatic  circular  in  which  he 
laid  down  principles  of  foreign  policy;  "if  events 
require  it,  Belgium  will  take  such  precautions 


The  Great  Powers  17 

as  care  for  her  safety  dictates."  This  sufficed 
to  arouse  alarm  in  Berlin  and  Vienna;  if  Bel- 
gium spoke  in  this  way,  it  must  be  because  she 
shared  France's  warlike  designs.  "The  system/* 
says  a  confidential  memorandum,  **is  carried 
so  far  as  to  consider  all  armament  in  Belgium 
as  a  violation  of  her  neutrality." 

Or  again  it  was  upon  economic  ground  that 
antagonisms  came  to  light:  since  1836,  attempts 
had  been  made  to  induce  Belgium  to  conclude 
a  commercial  union  with  the  French  monarchy. 
Belgium  resisted.  In  order  to  force  her  con- 
sent, a  tariff  war  was  undertaken  against  her; 
the  other  guaranteeing  Powers,  upon  England's 
intervention,  then  upheld  the  young  kingdom 
and  declared,  notably  in  opposition  to  Guizot, 
that  any  commercial  fusion  was  contrary  to 
neutrality. 

A  few  years  later,  in  1848,  it  was  Republican 
France,  which,  breaking  with  Lamartine's  pa- 
cific attitude,  manifested  a  very  hostile  frame 
of  mind  towards  Belgium.     The  Belgian  Govern- 


1 8  Belgium  and 

merit  immediately  sounded  the  other  foreign 
Cabinets,  and  Lord  Pahnerston  on  this  occasion 
made  a  declaration  which,  indeed,  is  not  without 
a  bearing  upon  present  events;  the  Powers,  he 
said,  had  not  only  the  right,  but  also  the  obliga- 
tion to  guarantee  the  independence  of  Belgium, 
and  this  obligation  implied  according  to  him 
the  general  duty:  1st,  of  aiding  by  all  means 
the  party  wronged  by  the  aggression  of  a  foreign 
Power;  2d,  to  preserve  for  it  or  to  cause  to  be 
restored  to  it  the  territorial  possession  thus 
safeguarded. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  Belgian  authori- 
ties stopped  at  the  frontier  a  band  of  French 
revolutionaries  who  attempted  to  penetrate 
into  their  territory — though  this  did  not  prevent 
Belgiimi,  hospitable  to  the  defenders  of  Kberal 
institutions,  from  giving  refuge  some  time 
later  to  the  exiles  of  the  Second  Empire. 

We  will  not  dwell  upon  the  susceptibiKties 
aroused  in  1855  by  the  organization  of  the 
defence  of  the  country  and  the  construction 


The  Great  Powers  19 

of  the  entrenched  camp  of  Antwerp,  nor  upon 
the  solicitations  to  which  Belgium  was  subjected 
during  the  Crimean  War.  It  was  after  1866 
that  the  incidents  took  place  which  best  show 
to  what  an  extent  Belgium  had  always  to  pursue 
a  policy  of  action  and  of  safeguard,  very  foreign 
to  all  diplomatic  ideology.  Although  the  scope 
of  the  secret  negotiations  begun  by  Napoleon 
III.  with  Bismarck  with  a  view  to  the  eventual 
annexation  of  Belgium  by  France  was  not  ex- 
actly known  in  Brussels,  the  Belgian  Govern- 
ment had  received  information  of  a  grave 
character.  Soon,  a  diplomatic  circular  of  the 
French  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  ad  interim^ 
the  Marquis  de  la  Valette,  raised  anxiety  to 
the  highest  pitch:  this  document  set  forth 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  theory  of  the 
elimination  of  the  small  States  for  the  benefit 
of  the  great  States,  and  it  announced,  besides, 
a  military  reorganization  which  gave  a  crowning 
significance  to  this  manifesto.  A  character- 
istic fact  and  one  which  well  reveals  the  hypo- 


20  Belgium  and 

critical  ambitions  of  which  the  Belgian  Govern- 
ment had  to  keep  track  unceasingly,  was  that 
the  appearance  of  the  French  circular  coincided 
with  a  campaign  in  the  German  semi-official 
Press,  notably  in  the  Norddeutsche  Allgemeine 
Zeitung,  against  Belgium.  Threatened  on  both 
sides,  public  opinion  in  the  country  turned 
instinctively  towards  the  third  guarantor:  a 
delegation  of  English  volunteers  was  invited 
to  Brussels,  and  was  warmly  welcomed  by  the 
population.  The  English  Press,  without  dis- 
tinction of  party,  took  up  the  quarrel  of  Bel- 
gium, and  denounced  the  hidden  conspiracy 
which  was  being  hatched  against  her. 

In  1867  there  were  fresh  alarms.  First  of 
all,  the  fate  of  the  Grand-Duchy  of  Luxemburg, 
which  was  discussed  in  an  international  con- 
ference, resembling  as  it  did  that  of  Belgixmi  at 
so  many  points,  gave  a  fresh  stimulus  to  the 
cupidity  of  foreign  Powers.  By  the  dignified 
policy  which  it  adopted,  the  Belgian  Govern- 
ment secured  the  confidence  of  Europe. 


The  Great  Powers  21 

This  question  had  hardly  been  settled,  when 
the  French  Empire  attempted  to  lay  its  hands 
upon  important  railway  lines  in  the  country: 
it  was  an  obvious  attack  upon  national  sover- 
eignty. But  the  tenacious  ability  of  a  politician 
who  was  destined  to  become  a  statesman,  M. 
Frfere-Orban,  succeeded  in  bringing  long  and 
diflScult  negotiations  in  Paris  to  a  successful 
issue. 

Next  it  was  1870 — which  offers  so  many 
analogies  with  the  present  situation. 

It  has  not  been  sufBciently  noticed,  for  in- 
stance, that  if  England  then  thought  it  her 
duty  to  ask  of  France  and  Prussia  a  special 
engagement  to  respect  Belgian  territory,  it 
was  for  reasons  very  similar  to  those  which 
determined  her  action  in  the  present  conflict. 
On  the  3d  of  August,  1914,  England  had  known 
for  six  days  Germany's  intentions  with  regard 
to  Belgium;  in  the  historic  conversation  of  the 
29th  of  July,  which  remains  for  the  Belgians 
the  crucial  date,  it  had  been  said  that  Belgium 


22  Belgium  and 

would  only  preserve  her  integrity  if  she  allowed 
the  German  army  to  pass;  as  to  her  independ- 
ence, no  mention  was  made  of  it  (see  in  La  Bel- 
gigue  neutre  et  loyale,  pp.iii  to  117  and  122-123, 
the  gradual  increase  of  the  bidding  made  at  Bel- 
gium's expense  in  the  terms  offered  to  England 
as  the  price  of  her  abstention  between  the  29th 
of  July  and  the  4th  of  August).  In  like  man- 
ner in  1870,  England  had  just  become  aware  of 
the  secret  negotiation  between  Napoleon  III. 
and  Bismarck,  and  it  was  the  feeling  stirred  up 
by  this  revelation  which  decided  public  opinion; 
the  discussions  in  the  British  Parliament  bear 
witness  to  it.  '*It  is  impossible,'*  said  Lord 
Russell  in  the  House  of  Lords,  on  the  2d  of 
August,  1870,  ''not  to  be  anxious  for  the  future 
when  we  see  that  in  1866,  and  in  still  more 
recent  times,  the  Prime  Minister  of  Prussia, 
and  the  Ambassador,  initiated  into  the  thoughts 
of  the  Emperor  of  the  French,  deliberated  to- 
gether in  order  to  violate  the  treaty  of  1831, 
trample  public  faith  under  foot,  and  annihilate 


The  Great  Powers  23 

the  independence  of  Belgium.  Belgium  has 
attacked  nobody.  It  is  a  prosperous  kingdom, 
in  possession  of  free  institutions,  and  although 
there  have  been  conflicts  from  time  to  time, 
such  as  those  in  connection  with  the  railways 
and  other  matters  of  slight  importance,  I  have 
never  heard  it  denied  that  under  the  late  King 
Leopold,  a  very  wise  and  intelligent  monarch, 
as  under  the  present  King,  Belgium  has  main- 
tained friendly  relations  with  all  the  other 
States,  guarding  her  own  independence  and 
wronging  no  other  country.  It  is  therefore  an 
extraordinary  discovery  to  learn  that  the  inde- 
pendence of  this  State  has  been  the  subject  of 
negotiations  between  other  Powers.  .  .  .  We 
are  bound  to  defend  Belgium." 

I  do  not  wish  to  linger  further  over  this  sug- 
gestive parallel  between  1870  and  19 14,  but  it 
is  necessary  to  note  in  passing  that  from  the 
moment  when  England's  attitude  became  clear, 
Belgium  was  in  a  position  to  know  the  reasons 
upon  which  it  was  founded.     Disraeli  had  taken 


24  Belgium  and 

care  to  recall  that  the  obligation  to  defend  Bel- 
gium took  its  rise  in  the  best  established  inter- 
ests of  English  policy:  *'The  treaty  of  1839/' 
explained  the  orator,  ''was  concluded  in  the 
general  interest  of  Europe,  but  with  a  very  clear 
notion  of  the  importance  of  its  provisions  for 
England.  It  was  a  permanent  principle  of 
the  policy  of  this  country  that  England's  inter- 
est required  that  the  lands  situated  along  the 
coast  of  the  Continent,  from  Dunkirk  to  Ostend, 
and  as  far  as  the  islands  of  the  North  Sea, 
should  be  possessed  by  free  and  prosperous 
States,  practising  the  arts  of  peace,  enjoying 
the  rights  of  liberty,  applying  themselves  to 
the  operations  of  commerce,  which  promote  the 
interests  of  general  civilization,  and  that  these 
lands  should  not  belong  to  a  great  military 
Power,  which,  by  the  conditions  of  its  existence, 
must  tend  towards  exercising  a  preponderating 
influence  in  Europe." 

The  Belgian  Government  was  not  blind  to 
these  signs.     Belgium,  negotiating  directly  with 


The  Great  Powers  25 

France  and  with  Germany,  obtained  their 
pledges  to  respect  her  neutrality — "a  super- 
fluous declaration,  in  view  of  the  treaties  in 
force,*'  wrote  Bismarck  to  the  Belgian  Minister 
on  the  22d  of  July. 

In  this  grave  crisis  again,  Belgian  policy 
kept  in  close  contact  with  realities;  it  did  not 
delude  itself;  it  knew  that  the  autonomous 
existence  of  the  country  rested  upon  a  neutral- 
ization of  interests.  Nay,  more;  with  its 
eyes  fixed  upon  the  future  it  took  care  to  point 
out  publicly  the  significance  of  recent  events: 
on  the  1 6th  of  August,  the  Belgian  Minis- 
ter of  Foreign  Affairs,  M.  d*Anethan,  communi- 
cated to  Parliament  the  text  of  the  agreements 
signed  by  France  and  by  Prussia  with  England 
and  thus  defined  their  scope:  ''The  identical  and 
separate  treaties,''  he  said,  '*  concluded  by  Eng- 
land with  the  two  Powers  at  war,  neither  create 
nor  modify  the  obligations  resulting  from  the 
treaty  of  1839;  they  settle  the  practical  method 
of  execution  of  these  obligations  in  view  of  any 


26  Belgium  and 

particular  case;  they  do  not  invalidate  in  any 
way  the  engagements  of  the  other  guaranteeing 
powers,  and  as  their  texts  bear  witness,  they 
leave  unaltered  for  the  future  the  obligatory 
character  of  the  preceding  treaty  with  all  its 
consequences/*^ 

*  It  will  be  remarked  in  passing  how  completely  these  for- 
mal declarations  annihilate  the  thesis  of  certain  accusers 
who  maintain  that  in  19 14  Belgium  was  no  longer  guaranteed 
by  the  initial  treaty  of  1839,  because,  according  to  them,  it 
had  been  nullified  by  those  of  1870.  (See,  for  instance, 
Frans  Kolbe,  in  Das  Grossere  Deutschland^  No.  5,  30th  Janu- 
ary, 191 5;  Professor  John  W.  Burgess,  Der  Europdische  Krieg^ 
Hirzel,  Leipzig,  Kap.  vi.,  pp.  135-193;  and  Dr.  R.  Pattai, 
Wiener  Deutsches  Volkshlatty  nth  of  October,  1914.  Contra: 
"Documentary  Note-books,"  B.D.B.,  Le  Havre,  Note  No. 
40.) 

Further  the  text  of  the  double  treaty  of  1870  is  categorical, 
and  we  can  only  suppose  that  those  who  have  defended  the 
thesis  of  which  I  speak  had  not  read  it: 

"H.  M.  the  Queen  of  the  United  Kingdom  .  .  .  and  H.  M. 
.  .  .,  desiring  at  the  present  time  to  record  in  a  solemn  act 
their  fixed  determination  to  maintain  the  independence  and 
the  neutrality  of  Belgium  established  by  Art.  7  of  the  treaty 
signed  at  London  on  the  19th  of  April,  1839,  between  Belgium 
and  the  Netherlands,  which  article  has  been  declared  by  the 
quintuple  Treaty  of  1839  to  have  the  same  force  and  the 
same  validity  as  if  it  were  textually  inserted  in  the  said  quin- 
tuple Treaty,  the  said  Majesties  have  resolved  to  conclude 
between  them  a  separate  Treaty  which,  without  invalidating 
or  impairing  the  conditions  of  the  quintuple  Treaty  aforesaid^ 
will  be  subsidiary  and  accessory  to  it,'* 


The  Great  Powers  27 

Since  1870,  Belgian  policy  has  not  been  able 
to  relax  its  vigilance  or  its  activity :  alternations 
of  malevolence  and  of  sympathy  have  succeeded 
each  other  almost  without  interruption. 

Already  during  the  war,  Germany  showed 
her  ill-humour  in  connection  with  the  attitude 
of  a  part  of  the  Belgian  Press,  which  she  con- 
sidered too  sympathetic  towards  France;  this 
called  forth  a  very  clear  declaration  from  the  Bel- 
gian Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  in  the  Senate. 
*'It  would,*'  he  said,  "be  supremely  unjust  to 
make  either  the  nation  or  the  Government 
responsible  for  certain  newspaper  articles." 
"A  short  time  afterwards,"  states  M.  Banning 
in  a  confidential  memorandum,  to  which  his 
high  office  in  the  Department  of  Foreign  Affairs 

"Art.  3. — This  Treaty  will  be  obligatory  for  the  contract- 
ing High  Parties  for  the  duration  of  the  present  war  between 
France  and  the  North  German  Confederation  and  its  allies, 
and  for  twelve  months  after  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  of 
peace  concluded  between  the  belligerents,  and  at  the  expira- 
tion of  this  period^  the  independence  and  the  neutrality  of  Belgium 
will  continue^  in  as  Jar  as  the  contracting  High  Parties  are 
concerned,  to  rest  as  until  now  upon  Art.  I  of  the  quintuple  Treaty 
of  the  14th  of  April,  183 g,'* 


28  Belgium  and 

at  Brussels  gave  exceptional  authority,  **  the 
Peace  of  Versailles  brought  about  a  momentary 
calm.  But  as  early  as  1872,  recriminations 
began  again.  It  was  in  the  spring  of  1875  that 
hostile  manifestations  readied  their  climax; 
Germany  was  then  upon  the  point  of  resuming 
the  struggle  against  France;  but  the  Emperor  of 
Russia  imposed  peace  (May,  1875).  The  storm 
artificially  raised  against  Belgiimi  subsided 
immediately:  it  had  lost  its  object.'' 

Prom  1888  to  1 89 1,  it  was  in  France  that  a 
press  campaign  was  organized  against  Belgium; 
the  publication  of  doctmients  purloined  at 
Brussels  and  the  commentaries  which  accom- 
panied them,  notably  in  the  Nouvelle  Revue^ 
led  the  Belgian  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  to 
vouch  in  Parliament  for  the  absolute  straight- 
forwardness of  Belgian  policy,  "which,'*  he 
said,  '*  respects  the  duties  of  neutrality  to  the 
point  of  scrupulousness."  Nevertheless,  a 
pamphlet  entitled  Belgium  Sold  to  Germany 
reproached   the  Belgian   Government,   among 


The  Great  Powers  29 

many  other  things,  with  having  abstained  from 
sending  official  representatives  to  the  Paris 
Exhibition,  and  with  persisting  in  ordering  its 
cannons  from  the  Krupp  estabKshments  (p. 
200);  on  the  8th  of  August,  1890,  the  Figaro 
went  so  far  as  to  write:  '*We  must  henceforth 
consider  Belgium  no  longer  as  a  neutral  State, 
but  really  as  a  German  province."  After  a 
short  lapse  of  time,  the  Government,  by  the 
anxiety  it  showed  to  maintain  the  international 
position  of  the  country,  dissipated  all  prejudices 
and  silenced  calumny. 

From  about  1895  onward  it  was  from  Eng- 
land .that  the  clouds  came:  already  in  1887, 
Sir  Charles  Dilke  had  written  in  a  political 
study  published  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  that 
**the  affairs  of  the  Congo  had  been  singularly 
prejudicial  to  Belgium  in  the  mind  of  the  English 
nation"  {Europe  in  1887,  p.  49).  An  article 
in  the  Standard  of  the  4th  of  February,  1887, 
which  finds  unexpected  favour  today  among 
the   newspapers   and  publicists  of   Germany, 


30  Belgium  and 

had  set  forth  views  which  were,  in  truth,  hardly 
favourable  to  Belgian  neutrality,  but  which 
merely  expressed  a  private  opinion,  and  not,  as 
the  German  Press  would  have  us  believe,  the 
sentiments  of  the  English  Government.  Soon, 
the  English  campaign  against  the  administration 
of  the  Congo  Free  State  before  the  annexa- 
tion by  Belgium  provoked  strong  protestations 
from  Belgian  opinion;  political  relations  were 
affected  by  them.  In  his  speech  on  the  occa- 
sion of  his  accession  to  the  throne,  in  December, 
1909,  King  Albert  made  a  declaration  on  the 
subject  of  the  introduction  of  reforms  in  the 
Congo  by  the  Belgian  Government,  the  import 
of  which  was  very  clear  to  all:  "When  Belgium 
enters  into  an  engagement,''  he  declared,  *'no 
one  has  the  right  to  doubt  her  word.'* 

But  we  have  now  arrived  at  the  very  period 
in  which  critics  of  Belgian  policy  persist  in 
multiplying  their  charges.  I  will  deal  with 
them  in  a  special  part  of  this  study  (see 
Chapter  II.,  p.  44  et  seq,). 


The  Great  Powers  31 

This  rapid  summary  should  siiffice  to  show 
to  what  an  extent  public  feeling,  guided  by  an 
instinctive  sense  of  necessity,  has,  since  the 
first  years  of  Belgian  independence,  habitually 
turned  against  the  neighbour,  whoever  he 
might  be,  who  betrayed  a  disposition  to  inter- 
fere or  dominate.  Bluster,  threats,  indiscreet 
sympathies,  malevolent  interpretations,  imme- 
diately revived  the  rebellious  spirit  ever  latent 
in  the  Belgian  people.  This  psychology  of 
the  nation  fully  explains  the  vogue  enjoyed  for 
a  certain  time  by  the  project  of  a  closer  under- 
standing with  Holland;  there  would  perhaps 
be  less  cause  for  anxiety,  if  we  were  two  instead 
of  one  to  face  a  common  danger. 

One  fact  becomes  very  clear  to  us,  namely 
that  the  resolution  of  the  2d  of  August,  1914, 
has  taken  its  place  as  a  link  in  an  unbroken 
chain  of  political  decisions. 

For  eighty-four  years  Belgium  had  been 
pursuing  a  policy  of  rare  steadfastness.  This 
policy  was  simply  the  outcome  of  the  national 


32  Belgium  and 


will  to  live:  "Everything  comes  into  being  and 
perishes  with  our  independence,"  King  Leopold 
had  said  in  1887,  when  inaugurating,  at  Bruges, 
the  monument  to  the  memory  of  the  Flemish 
Communiers.  We  were  neutral,  not  only  be- 
cause we  meant  to  remain  faithful  to  the  engage- 
ment entered  into  with  Europe,  which,  in  1830, 
had  made  neutrality  the  condition  of  liberty, 
but  because,  if  we  wanted  to  live,  we  had  to 
remain  what  we  were.  It  was  a  reason  stronger 
than  any  which  could  be  drawn  from  the  casuis- 
try of  international  conventions, — and  it  is 
this  reason  which  seems  to  elude  Belgium's 
critics;  not  seeing  it,  they  do  not  see  that  for 
no  country  is  the  obligation  to  yield  to  no  foreign 
influence  bound  up,  as  it  is  for  Belgium,  with 
the  very  conditions  of  its  political  formation 
and  of  its  development  as  a  State. 

The  situation  may  be  summed  up  in  two 
words:  since  1830  Belgiimi's  foreign  policy 
has  consisted  of  this  elementary  program:  No 
infeodation, — no   infeodation   of   any    sort   or 


The  Great  Powers  33 

kind,  whether  political,  economic,  or  colonial; 
no  infeodation,  either  in  the  realm  of  language 
or  in  that  of  thought :  the  national  interest  pure 
and  simple.  The  man  in  the  street  would  have 
found  himself  in  agreement  with  the  Govern- 
ment as  to  that  program,  for  it  came  from 
the  very  soul  of  the  people.  It  has  been  ener- 
getically reiterated  in  the  recent  manifesto  by 
which  the  most  influential  personalities  of  the 
Flemish  movement  have  replied  to  the  solici- 
tations addressed  to  them  by  the  Germans  in 
occupied  Belgium:  Wij  willen  in  geene  afhanke- 
lijkheid  leven  van  eenige  vreemde  mogendheid 
(*' We  do  not  desire  to  live  as  the  dependants  of 
any  foreign  Power  whatever''). 

To  a  people  whose  policy  had  been  so  de- 
termined, so  consistent,  and  so  clearly  defined, 
and  from  its  earliest  beginnings  had  remained 
so  unswervingly  true  to  itself,  the  demand  for 
passage  from  the  German  armies  could  make 
no  difference.  Let  us  imagine  this  demand — 
even  unaccompanied  by  the  fatal  threat  which 


34  Belgium  and 

offered  the  country  the  alternative  of  yielding 
or  of  losing  its  independence — let  us  imagine 
it  addressed  to  the  Belgians  of  1840,  of  1848, 
of  1856,  of  1866,  of  1870:  what  reply  would 
they  have  given? 

Refusal. 

Refusal — not  dictated  by  martial  romanti- 
cism, nor  the  bigotry  of  diplomatic  fictions,  but 
— apart  from  any  consideration  of  fidelity  to 
treaties — by  the  fact  that  acquiescence  would 
have  meant  infeodation — before,  during,  and 
after  the  war:  there  are  acts  of  compliance 
which  prepare  the  way  for  servitude. 

Refusal:  dictated  by  necessity. 

For  in  the  case  of  Belgium  necessity  imposed 
a  law.  Not  kannte  kein  Gebot:  not  a  necessity  of 
strategic  convenience,  but  a  necessity  bound  up 
with  the  very  existence  of  the  nation,  and  with 
the  cardinal  principle  of  abandoning  nothing 
of  its  personality  to  one  or  other  of  the  three 
neighbouring  Powers. 

Belgium  had  so  clear  a  consciousness  of  this 


The  Great  Powers  35 

that,  in  her  reply  to  the  German  Note  of  the 
2d  of  August,  she  formulated  the  declaration 
by  which  again,  at  this  supreme  hour,  she  ex- 
pressed her  will  to  be  independent:  **If,  con- 
trary to  our  expectation,  a  violation  of  Belgian 
neutrality  should  be  committed  by  France, 
Belgium  would  fulfil  all  her  international  obli- 
gations, and  her  army  would  offer  the  most 
vigorous  resistance  to  the  invader." 

The  opinion  recently  expressed  to  me  by  the 
Director  of  the  Foreign  Affairs  of  Belgium  is 
even  more  definite  in  this  connection:  ''Never 
for  an  instant,  he  told  me,  did  we  think  that, 
in  a  European  conflagration  in  which  our 
neutrality  would  be  violated,  we  should  be  able 
to  choose  our  allies." 

Have  I  now  made  it  clear  how  completely 
Belgium,  guided  in  her  decision  on  the  2d  of 
August,  1914,  by  respect  for  her  pledged  word 
to  the  Powers  in  1830,  and  taking  her  stand, 
without  weighing  the  respective  chances  of 
the  adversaries,  on  the  side  to  which  Right 


36  Belgium  and 

called  her,  was  at  the  same  time  serving  her 
most  vital  interests? 

She  might,  it  is  often  said  (see,  for  the  latest 
expression  of  this  opinion,  Frankfurter  Zeitung^ 
23d  of  February,  1916,  No.  53),  have  yielded 
in  the  middle  of  August,  1914,  when  Germany 
renewed  her  demand.  As  if  to  open  her  terri- 
tory at  this  moment  to  one  of  the  guarantors 
would  not  have  been,  in  fact,  to  side  with  that 
guarantor,  to  the  detriment  of  the  other  two! 
As  if  to  accept  a  compromise  after  fifteen  days 
of  a  war  marked  by  inhimian  and  undeserved 
reprisals,  would  not  have  been  an  outrage  to 
public  feeling  and  an  evidence  of  the  worst  of 
infeodations! 

•         •••••• 

What  remains,  in  view  of  all  this,  of  the 
analogies  between  the  position  of  Belgitmi  and 
that  of  certain  Balkan  States,  which  the  German 
press  and,  to  some  extent,  the  neutral  press 
have  multiplied  since  last  October  with  undis- 
guised satisfaction? 


The  Great  Powers  37 

When  the  Berne  Tageblatt  reverts  (for  ex- 
ample, Nos.  for  the  9th  October  and  7th  De- 
cember, 191 5)  to  the  misfortunes  of  Belgium 
and  of  Serbia,  it  attacks  not  only  the  great 
Powers  of  the  Entente,  but  also  the  two  small 
nations.  I  confine  myself  deliberately  to  the 
defence  of  Belgium's  policy,  and  consequently 
I  refrain  from  the  consideration  of  events  in 
the  Balkans  save  in  so  far  as  they  bear  upon 
this  defence.  Now,  according  to  the  Berne 
Tageblatt,  the  lesson  they  offer  is  that  a  small 
people  must  think  twice  before  making  its 
existence  dependent  upon  the  intervention  of 
a  great  Power.  ''Belgium  listened  to  England 
and  France,  just  as  Serbia  followed  Russia; 
Belgium  decided  to  resist  only  in  the  absolute 
conviction  that  she  would  receive  sufficient 
aid  from  the  Entente.*' 

This  statement  contradicts  one  of  the  facts 
most  solidly  established  by  the  Belgian  Grey 
Book:  it  had  already  been  put  forward  in  the 
letter    which    thirty-one    German    Professors 


38  Belgium  and 

sent  to  the  English  Universities  on  the  7th  of 
September,  1914,  and  in  calling  attention  to 
this  manifesto  I  pointed  out  how  completely 
my  German  colleagues  were  mistaken. 

"The  Belgians/'  I  said,  ''resisted  the  German 
invasion,  irrespective  of  England's  willingness 
or  imwillingness  to  intervene.  •  The  appeal  of 
the  King  for  the  diplomatic  intervention  of  the 
English  Government  was  made  after  the  refusal 
of  the  proposition  of  August  2d  had  been  notified 
to  Germany.  The  appeal  of  the  Government 
for  the  military  co-operation  of  the  English, 
French,  and  Russian  forces  was  made  after  the 
violation  of  Belgian  territory,  when  the  Belgian 
Army  was  already  fighting.'    And  I  know  on 

*  Since  the  opportunity  is  offered  me,  I  should  like  to  cor- 
rect a  rather  widespread  error  on  the  subject  of  the  military 
intervention  of  France.  There  has  been  frequent  reference 
to  the  refusal  which  the  Belgian  Government  is  said  to  have 
made  to  a  French  offer  to  send  five  army  corps  to  the  help 
of  Belgium  threatened  by  the  German  Note.  It  is  officially 
established,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  French  Minister  only 
made  the  communication  given  in  the  first  Grey  Book  (see 
notably  No.  24) ;  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  French  military 
attacks  only  spoke  to  the  Minister  of  War  of  help  in  principle, 
which  the  Belgian  Government  was  only  prepared  to  accept 


The  Great  Powers  39 

good  authority — I  give  my  word  of  honour  as 
to  this — that  at  that  moment  there  was  deep 
anxiety  in  the  ruling  spheres  of  Belgiimi,  when 
men  asked  each  other  what  would  be  the  reply 
from  London/*     {La  Belgigue  neutre  et  loyale, 

p.  173.) 

A  comparison  between  the  attitude  of  Bel- 
gium and  that  of  Serbia  is  in  fact  irrevelant: 
Serbia's  status  authorized  her  to  pursue  the 
policy  which  suited  her.  Belgium  was  bound, 
obliged,  compelled,  by  the  constitution  which 
Europe  had  imposed  upon  her  as  the  condition 
of  her  independence,  not  only  to  resist  on  the 
very  day  when  her  frontier  was  violated,  but 
also  to  act  in  concert  with  those  of  her  guaran- 
tors who  had  remained  faithful  to  her. 

The  contrast  which  some  have  attempted  to 
establish  between  the  attitude  of  Belgiimi  and 
that  of  Greece  rests  on  no  better  foundation. 


after  the  violation  of  territory;  nothing  was  ever  specified  on 
the  subject;  no  mention  of  the  nature  and  the  strength  of  this 
help  was  ever  made. 


40  Belgium  and 

In  a  press  communication  (25th  of  Novem- 
ber, 1915),  in  which  the  Wolff  Agency — quite 
erroneously,  as  the  Social  Demokraten  of  the 
26th  of  December  pointed  out — claimed  to  see 
a  reflection  of  public  feeling  in  Denmark,  the 
King  of  the  Belgians  was  contrasted  with  the 
King  of  Greece:  the  latter,  it  was  said,  had  used 
his  influence  to  preserve  his  country  from  the 
calamities  of  war;  the  former,  on  the  other  hand, 
had  thrown  his  sword  into  the  balance  and 
thus  called  down  upon  his  people  the  fate  which 
overwhelms  them.  Can  any  one  fail  to  see, 
however,  that  nothing  in  the  two  situations 
offers  a  ground  of  comparison? 

Belgiimi,  in  1914,  on  the  eve  of  a  conflict 
which  was  about  to  engage  her  neighbours,  who 
were  at  the  same  time  her  guarantors,  in  a 
deadly  struggle,  was  summoned  by  one  of  them, 
at  the  price  of  the  loss  of  her  liberty,  to  revoke 
her  engagements  with  the  others.  Since  her 
foundation  as  a  State,  the  whole  of  her  policy, 
springing  from  the  very  necessities  of  existence, 


The  Great  Powers  4^^ 

had  aimed  solely  at  escaping  subjection.  Chal- 
lenged qiiite  unexpectedly,  when  contrary 
assurances  had  been  lavished  upon  her  a  few 
hours  previously,  she  had  one  night  to  make  her 
decision.  If  she  had  acquiesced,  she  would 
have  not  only  destroyed  all  her  past,  but  she 
I  would  also  have  added  to  the  incredibility  of 

such  an  action  all  the  obloquy  which  overwhelms 
those  who  fail  in  their  obligations.  No  people, 
no  man  could  have  hesitated. 

Greece,  in  19 15,  in  the  midst  of  a  war  whose 
events  hitherto  had  taken  place  far  from  her 
frontiers,  received  from  the  three  Powers 
which,  alone  in  Europe,  had,  since  her  regen- 
eration, helped  her  to  conquer  and  to  keep  her 
independence,  a  request  to  allow  the  troops  of 
these  Powers  to  cross  her  territory  in  order  to 
go  to  the  assistance  of  her  own  ally.  Her 
Government  had  had  leisure  to  reiHect  for  many 
long  months;  it  had  first  of  all  taken  up  a  posi- 
tion favourable  to  the  interests  of  the  said 
Powers  and  consistent  with  national  tradition; 


42  Belgium  and 

it  was  bound  by  no  treaty ;  it  remained,  within 
the  limits  marked  out  by  gratitude  and  coher- 
ence of  conduct,  supreme  mavSter  and  judge  of 
its  interests.  It  made  up  its  mind  and  assumed 
its  responsibilities. 

Where  can  we  find  the  slightest  analogy? 
Professor  Schweizer,  of  Zurich,  in  an  article 
upon  the  benevolent  neutrality  of  Greece  com- 
pared with  the  neutrality  of  Switzerland  {Neue 
Zilrcher  Zeitungy  26-27  November,  1915), 
has  lucidly  shown  that  the  right  of  passage  is 
absolutely  incompatible  with  permanent  neu- 
trality and  that  Germany's  request,  on  the  2d 
of  August,  1914,  was  equivalent  to  transform- 
ing Belgium,  a  neutralized  territory,  into  a 
base  for  offensive  operations  against  France. 

As  to  whether  the  evolution  of  political  forms 
in  contemporary  States  necessitates  the  absorp- 
tion of  the  small  ones  by  the  great,  a  discussion 
upon  such  a  question  could  be  useful  only  in 
less  unfavourable  circumstances.  Besides,  the 
contemporary  State  is  being  formed  under  our 


The  Great  Powers  43 

eyes,  just  as  different  from  what  it  was  less  than 
a  century  ago  as  from  what  it  was  thought  that 
it  would  be;  we  can  hardly  foretell  what  will 
be  its  dominant  traits. 

But  one  thing  is  certain:  it  is  that  men  united 
together  in  nations  will  never  place  commercial 
calculations  above  the  sentiment  which  they 
have  for  their  common  existence.  Perhaps  a 
small  State  would  derive  some  economic  ad- 
vantage from  being  absorbed  by  a  great  State. 
But  the  citizens  of  a  State  are  moved  by  as- 
pirations which  have  no  concern  with  questions 
of  revenue  and  expenditure,  and  history  is 
made  up  of  the  conflicts  which  arise  from  the 
divergency  of  these  aspirations  the  very  nobility 
of  which  makes  it  impossible  to  restrict  them. 


CHAPTER  II 


BELGIUM   RESISTED   BECAUSE   SHE  WAS 
ALREADY   PLEDGED '' 


On  the  13th  of  October,  1914,  fifteen  months 

ago,  the  accusation  was  first  made  that   the 

Belgian    Government    had    been    guilty   of   a 

grave    violation    of    the    obligations    imposed 

upon  it  by  its  situation  as  a  neutral  State.    The 

accusation  claimed  to  be  founded  *'  on  documents 

proving    Belgium's    connivance    {die    helgische 

Konnivenz)  with  the  Powers  of  the  Entente, 

a  fact  which,  it  was  stated,  had  indeed  been 

already  known  for  a  long  time  before  the  war 

in  well-informed  circles  in  Germany''   (Nord- 

deutsche    Allgemeine    Zeitung,    13th    October, 

1914). 

Since  that  moment,  probably  not  a  week  has 
44 


Belgium  and  the  Great  Powers    45 

passed  without  a  repetition  of  the  accusation 
in  some  form  or  other,  in  a  book,  a  pamphlet, 
a  newspaper,  a  speech,  or  an  interview.  The 
collection  of  documents  which  I  have  gathered 
together  from  day  to  day  has  gone  on  increasing, 
and  it  is  really  not  without  interest  to  see  how 
a  belief  gains  a  hold  upon  public  opinion. 

Again  today  when  Germans  address  neutral 
countries  they  will  say,  for  instance,  without 
embarrassment,  as  if  dealing  with  a  imiver- 
sally  accepted  fact:  ''Neutral  Holland  will 
never  suffer  the  fate  of  her  neighbour  of  the 
South,  guilty  Belgium,  who  violated  her  own 
neutrality  .  .  .  {des  neutrdlitatsbrilchigen  und 
schuldigen  Belgiens),  If  Belgium  had  followed 
the  policy  of  strict  and  loyal  neutrality  which 
Holland  observes,  if  she  had  not  let  herself  be 
taken  in  by  England,  and  if  she  had  not  pre- 
pared plans  against  Germany  in  concert  with 
England,  she  would  be  today  in  a  situation 
similar  to  that  of  Holland**  {Germaniaf  23 
September,  1915). 


46  Belgium  and 

Or  again,  in  a  letter  accompanying  documents 
sent  to  the  Swiss  newspapers,  the  German 
Minister  at  Berne  writes:  ** Belgium  had  indeed 
long  been  under  the  influence  of  France  and  of 
the  Entente**  {Journal  de  Jura,  15  September, 

1915)- 

Or  yet  again,  speaking  to  a  representative 
of  the  Associated  Press  of  the  United  States, 
Secretary  of  State  von  Jagow  explains  that 
"the  Belgian  Government,  encouraged  by 
England,  and  in  fact,  under  the  military  domi- 
nation of  this  Power,  plunged  its  country  into 
war"  {Lokal  Anzeiger,  16  October,  1915). 

It  is  not  without  interest  to  scrutinize  the 
methods  by  means  of  which  the  accusers  of 
Belgium  have  thus  been  able  to  wrest  the  facts 
from  their  natural  interpretation  and  obscure 
the  legitimacy  of  Belgium's  action. 

In  the  first  place,  they  attach  no  value  to 
denials,  however  solemn  they  may  be.  The 
Belgian  Government,  for  instance,  tired  of 
seeing   the   same  groundless   imputations   un- 


The  Great  Powers  47 

ceasingly  renewed,  has  made  the  following 
declaration,  which  it  bases  upon  facts:  **The 
Belgian  Government  declares  upon  its  honour 
that  not  only  was  no  agreement  concluded, 
but  also  that  there  never  were  either  negotia- 
tions or  propositions  on  the  subject  of  such  an 
agreement  on  the  part  of  any  Belgian  Govern- 
ment. ...  All  the  Belgian  Ministers,  without 
exception,  will  vouch  for  this  upon  oath:  no 
conclusion  whatever  arising  out  of  these  con- 
versations was  proposed  either  to  the  Council 
Ministers  or  to  any  individual  Minister*' 
{(Jtrey  Book,  ii.,  No.  103,  Annex,  p.  106).  To 
this  the  semi-official  newspaper  of  the  German 
Empire,  the  Norddeutsche  Allgemeine  Zeitung, 
confines  itself  to  replying :  '*  The  Belgian  Govern- 
ment wishes,  by  a  declaration  on  its  honour, 
to  suppress  compromising  documents  which 
exist.  It  denies  that  an  agreement  was  ever 
concluded  with  any  government,  or  that  even 
pourparlers  or  negotiations  ever  took  place. 
This  declaration  upon  its  honour  is  really  too 


48  Belgium  and 

axtless  for  any  one  to  credit  m  view  of  the  crush- 
ing proofs  furnished  by  documents."  (No.  for 
the  loth  March,  1915.) 

Of  the  fundamental  object  of  the  discussion, 
namely,  the  obvious  distinction  to  be  made  on 
the  one  hand  between  a  so-called  convention 
binding  the  Belgian  Government  to  the  British 
Government,  and  infeoffing  Belgium  to  the  policy 
of  the  Entente,  and  on  the  other  hand,  conver- 
sations between  military  men  anxious  to  safe- 
guard Belgian  neutrality  in  accordance  with 
treaties  and  precedents,  on  the  dreaded  hypo- 
thesis (which  was  in  fact  realized  in  1914),  that 
this  neutrality  would  be  first  violated  by  Ger- 
many,— of  this,  the  one  important  point  to 
be  considered,  we  hear  not  a  word.  But  the 
desired  impression  is  made  upon  the  reader: 
**The  Belgian  Government  impudently  denies 
established  facts,"  so  that  it  was  further  possible 
to  print,  in  an  official  note  sent  from  Berlin 
on  the  6th  of  August  last,  to  the  international 
press:   ''The  military  connivance  of  Belgium 


The  Great  Powers  49 

with  England  and  France  is  so  irrefutably 
established  by  documents  .  .  .  that  it  would 
be  superfluous  to  say  another  word  on  this 
subject." 

To  discover  the  origin  and  follow  the  tra- 
jectory of  these  persistent  trains  of  calumny,  a 
laborious  patience  to  which  the  subject  does 
not  readily  lend  itself  would  be  necessary;  but 
when  such  a  task  is  imdertaken  the  result  always 
repays  the  toil  of  research.  The  Bureau  Docu- 
mentaire  Beige  (B.D.B),  set  up  at  Havre,  has 
thus  traced  (in  Note  No.  136)  the  successive 
versions  of  the  following  piece  of  information 
published  on  the  26th  of  August  last  by  the 
Wolflf  Agency  in  Germany,  in  Austria-Hungary, 
and  in  all  the  neutral  countries. 

*'The  following  very  interesting  and  very 
characteristic  incident  has  been  commimicated 
to  us  from  an  important  source: 

"At  the  Dutch  Consulate  of  a  large  Swiss 
town,  a  man  returning  from  France  presented 
himself,  wishing  to  go  to  Belgium  and  soliciting 


50  Belgium  and 

a  Dutch  passport.  It  was  soon  proved  that 
the  applicant  was  not  Dutch,  but  Belgian. 
Among  the  documents  offered  for  identification 
purposes,  there  was,  by  chance,  a  small  pam- 
phlet destined,  according  to  its  title,  for  Belgian 
soldiers.  It  contained  sketches  of  various 
French  uniforms,  bore  the  title:  'Our  Allies/ 
and  the  date  of  publication,  July,  1914.  The 
story  is  absolutely  authentic,  aijd  the  persons 
who  brought  it  to  our  notice  are  ready  to  guar- 
antee its  authenticity  with  their  names." 

This  account  was  in  fact  merely  a  slightly 
modified  version  of  a  piece  of  information  which 
appeared  in  the  Kolnische  Zeitung  of  the  28th 
of  August,  1914,  No.  967,  under  the  heading  of 
Ein  Beweis  {'*  A  Proof  ").  Under  its  new  form 
it  made  the  round  of  the  press,  and  commenta- 
ries were  not  wanting.  Now  the  Dutch  Consul 
concerned  sent  a  decisive  rectification  in  the 
following  terms  to  a  Bale  newspaper,  the  Easier 
Anzeiger,  on  the  7th  of  September. 

"As  the  affair  gives  rise  to  all  sorts  of  consid- 


The  Great  Powers  51 

erations,  the  Consulate  in  question  points  out 
to  us  that  it  attaches  no  importance  to  the 
account  of  this  Belgian,  who,  wishing  in  the 
first  place  to  claim  another  nationality,  was 
obviously  indifferent  to  truth,  and  that  this 
story  has  been  given,  erroneously  and  progres- 
sively, an  importance  which  it  evidently  does 
not  deserve.  It  is  an  example  of  the  birth  of 
unfounded  rumours/' 

Neither  the  Wolff  Agency  nor  any  of  the 
newspapers  which  had  inserted  its  information 
published  the  contradiction.  What  is  more, 
three  weeks  later,  the  Berliner  Tageblatt  (29th 
September,  191 5,  morning  edition)  again  served 
up  the  original  story.  Better  still,  the  B.D.B., 
on  the  1 2th  of  October  last,  published  informa- 
tion derived  from  official  sources  which  proved, 
with  irrefutable  precision,  that  the  only  docu- 
ment reproducing  foreign  military  uniforms 
distributed  in  Belgium  on  the  occasion  of  the 
war  was  made  up,  but  not  yet  placed  in  circu- 
lation, on  the  6th  oj  August^  1914,  that  is  to  say 


52  Belgium  and 

Jour  days  after  the  receipt  of  the  German  Note. 
So  far,  not  one  of  the  numerous  journals  which 
adopted  the  error  has  devoted  a  single  line  to 
the  truth. 

I  have  said  that  one  of  the  first  methods  of 
confusing  public  opinion  consisted  in  ignoring 
or  denying  contradictions.  Another  very  fav- 
ourite proceeding  is  to  mix  up  in  one  account 
testimonies  of  weight  with  worthless  presump- 
tions, to  intersperse  flimsy  data  among  demon- 
strable facts  until  it  becomes  impossible  to 
disentangle  the  thread  of  reality. 

One  of  the  most  fertile  applications  of  this 
method  is  to  be  found  in  the  imputations  which 
aim  particularly  at  discrediting  the  policy  of 
the  Belgian  Government;  a  few  facts  of  an 
official  character  are  intermingled  with  a  large 
number  of  newspaper  cuttings,  extracts  from 
unoflScial  speeches,  impressions  or  anecdotes, 
which  are  supposed  to  give  a  picture  of  the 
state  of  opinion  in  the  country.  In  general, 
moreover,  this  opinion  is  represented  as  hostile 


The  Great  Powers  53 

to  Germany,  for  the  point  to  be  established  is 
that  even  before  the  war  a  systematic  hostility 
to  her  existed.  Sometimes,  however,  we  come 
across  the  contrary  thesis,  as,  for  instance,  in 
the  Schlesische  Volkszeitung  of  the  17th  of 
August,  19 1 5,  where  in  an  attempt  to  undermine 
French  influence,  it  is  explained  that  before  the 
war  a  large  part  of  the  Belgian  population  got 
on  very  well  with  the  Germans,  who  had  won 
their  genuine  aflFection.  The  contradiction  be- 
tween the  two  assertions  is  of  very  slight  im- 
portance; the  different  articles  reach  different 
readers. 

In  like  manner  it  is  by  means  of  a  truly 
alchemical  combination  of  docimients  that  the 
author  of  the  pamphlet  Belgian  Neutrality 
and  Swiss  Neutrality  (p.  17) — which  I  have 
already  touched  upon — manages  to  bolster  up 
a  conclusion  thus  formulated;  if  Germany  re- 
quested to  be  allowed  to  pass  through  Belgium, 
it  was  because  she  had  lost  all  confidence  in 
that  country,   and  would  never  have  risked 


54  Belgium  and 

relying  upon  her  neutrality  to  ensure  the  safety 
of  her  rich  Rhine  Provinces;  on  the  other  hand, 
Germany  had  absolute  confidence  In  Switzer- 
land, because  Switzerland  was  practising  neu- 
trality in  a  loyal  manner;  so  Germany  respected 
Switzerland  while  she  violated  the  territory  of 
Belgium  (pp.  29-30  of  the  German  edition, 
page  32  of  the  French  edition).  And  this  con- 
clusion rests  upon  the  exposition  of  a  series  of 
facts  which  claim  to  give  evidence  of  public 
feeling  in  Belgium,  but  which,  being  really 
worthless  in  themselves,  do  not  warrant  any 
generalization  concerning  Belgian  foreign  policy. 
For  instance,  the  author  quotes  insistently  from 
a  pamphlet  which  ought  to  have  appeared 
suspect  to  him,  since  it  bore  no  name  to  guaran- 
tee its  contents;  or  he  writes  (I  underline),  ''In 
Belgium  they  even  went  as  far  as  to  participate  in 
France's  armament.  In  191 2  when  a  national 
subscription  was  opened  in  France  for  the  bene- 
fit of  military  aviation,  no  hesitation  was  felt 
in  extending  the  movement  to  Belgium"  (p.  30 


The  Great  Powers  55 

of  the  French  edition).  As  a  fact,  the  matter 
had  never  gone  beyond  an  indiscreet  proposal, 
made  in  non-representative  circles,  and  a  Ghent 
newspaper  whose  tendencies  were  by  no  means 
violently  Flemish,  exclaimed  on  this  occasion: 
''Are  we  quite  mad?  and  is  it  really  necessary 
to  point  out  that  these  aeroplanes  might  be 
called  upon  to  hover  threateningly  over  Belgian 
soil? ''  The  author  knew  this,  for  he  felt  bound 
to  reprint  it,  but  that  did  not  prevent  him  from 
concluding  with  assurance:  *'What  could  be 
expected  of  a  country  whose  population  offers 
aeroplanes  to  the  French  Army?'^  (p.  29  of  the 
German  edition,  a  passage  not  reproduced  in 
the  French  edition). 

I  could  here  reproduce  numerous  extracts 
from  the  German  press  and  from  pamphlets 
destined  for  neutrals,  in  which  futile  incidents 
or  discredited  personalities  are  invoked.  To 
give  but  one  further  example,  I  will  say  what 
must  be  thought  of  a  certain  Major  Girard, 
whose  opinion  our  accusers  delight  to  reproduce: 


56  Belgium  and 

Mr.  Girard  no  longer  belongs  to  the  Belgian 
Army :  twenty-five  years  before  the  war,  he  had 
already  been  unanimously  stigmatized  in  Par- 
liament, and,  in  August,  1891,  a  newspaper  re- 
produced the  opinion  of  a  former  member  of  the 
Government  concerning  him:  ''Major  Girard** 
it  said,  ''is  carrying  on  an  absolutely  anti- 
patriotic  campaign,  unworthy  of  an  ex-officer." 
But  what  can  the  neutrals  know  of  all  this? 
They  retain  only  one  thing:  that  a  ''Belgian 
Major*'  has  ideas  favourable  to  certain  German 
theses. 

Such  methods  discredit  a  controversy.  It  is 
particularly  to  be  regretted  that  we  find  them 
in  writings  upon  which  the  position  of  their 
authors  appears  to  bestow  the  prestige  due  to 
scientific  work. 

Thus,  Professor  Karl  Hampe,  of  Heidelberg, 
mars  a  study  impartial  in  tone  {Belgiens  Ver- 
gangenheit  und  Gegenwarl,  Teubner,  Leipzig 
imd  Berlin,  1915)  by  giving,  in  his  IXth  chap- 
t^  (pp-  77  ^^  -^^sOj  3,  mosaic  of  quotations  of 


The  Great  Powers  57 

very  unequal  value,  in  order  to  prove  that, 
during  the  last  few  years,  the  directing  circles 
in  Belgium  had,  like  the  Government,  sided  with 
France  against  Germany:  of  what  value  are 
these  second-hand  cuttings  in  the  eyes  of  all 
who  know  the  enlightened  opinion  of  the  coun- 
try from  having  observed  and  measured  its 
currents? 

In  the  same  way,  Professor  Reinhard  Frank 
of  Munich  {Die  belgische  Neutralitdt,  Mohr, 
Tubingen,  1915,  p.  19  et  seq.)  and  his  colleague 
Aloys  Schulte  of  Bonn  {Von  der  Neutralitdt 
Belgiens,  Marcus  und  Weber,  Bonn,  1915,  p. 
94  et  seq,)  attempt  to  show  that  an  evolution 
had  taken  place  in  the  course  of  the  last  few 
years,  in  ofScial  spheres  and  in  influential 
circles  in  Belgium,  as  to  the  obligations  imposed 
by  neutrality.  The  opinions  quoted,  very  few 
in  number,  are  those  of  publicists,  that  is  to 
say  of  private  individuals,  neither  directly  nor 
indirectly  representative  of  the  Government. 
My  colleagues  will  recognize  that  to  transpose 


58  Belgium  and 

facts  and  assertions  in  this  way  from  the  private 
to  the  public  domain,  is  to  deprive  an  historical 
exposition  of  all  its  value.  These  dangerous 
methods,  which  entirely  set  aside  the  principles 
of  sound  criticism,  lead  to  declarations  like  the 
following:  **[In  Belgium]  everything  was  pre- 
pared  in  the  minds  of  the  jurists,,  the  soldiers — 
and  doubtless  also  of  the  politicians — to  enable 
them  to  look  upon  conspiracies  with  France 
and  England  as  compatible  with  neutrality/* 
Now,  this  grave  assertion  of  Professor  R.  Frank's 
(p.  26)  rests  upon  two  quotations,  neither  more 
nor  less. 

Again,  we  find  Professor  Schulte  making  this 
remarkable  series  of  specious  inferences  (p.  103) : 
''Certainly  the  Belgian  Government  did  not  put 
forward  this  point  of  view,  but  .  .  .  what  men 
like  these  [General  Brialmont  and  Professor 
Nys]  say,  is  not  effaced,  but  grows,  on  the  con- 
trary, in  people's  hearts.  .  .  .  The  fiery  Wal- 
loon (Brialmont)  was  among  the  most  ardent 
friends  of  France.     In  the  Belgian  Army  the 


The  Great  Powers  59 

partisans  of  the  French  Alliance  were  quite 
predominant.  They  finally  triumphed  also 
— at  least  so  it  appears — at  the  Ministry  of 
Foreign  Affairs." 

Or  again,  the  same  Professor  Schulte,  slipping 
surreptitiously  into  a  phrase  an  incident  which 
suggests  certain  ideas  and  tends  to  pervert  the 
judgment,  cries  in  speaking  of  the  port  of  Zee- 
brugge  (p.  86):  "England  cannot  come  to 
Antwerp  by  sea:  but  Belgium  constructed,  for 
commercial  purposes,  the  port  of  Zeebrugge; 
this  port  is  moreover  also  suitable  for  a  base  of 
disembarkation  for  the  English,  and  it  was  used 
for  this  purpose  in  the  autumn  of  1914." 

Pascal  loved  to  scourge  dialecticians  of  this 
kind. 

So  much  for  the  methods  of  the  Prosecution. 

The  facts  to  which  it  appeals  are  well-known : 
no  fresh  facts  have  been  brought  forward  for  a 
year,  but  the  old  ones  are  resuscitated  with 
different  readings. 


6o  Belgium  and 

I  will  confine  myself  to  utilizing  here  the 
most  official  of  German  documents,  the  last 
edition  of  the  White  Book  devoted  to  the  war: 
Aktenstilcke  zum  Kreigsausbruch  herausgegeben 
vom  Auswartigen  Amtey  published  about  April, 
1915.  At  this  date  it  was  still  considered  op- 
portune to  devote  a  third  of  the  seventy-five 
pages  of  this  document  to  imputations  against 
Belgium;  it  reproduces  the  revelations  of  the 
Norddeutsche  Allgemeine  Zeitung,  from  Oc- 
tober to  December,  1914,  concerning  the 
documents,  **Bamardiston-Ducame,"  '*Bridges- 
Jungbluth,"  ''Greindl,''  *'Espionnage,  military 
manuals,  and  English  reports." 

It  corrected  the  '*  insignificant  error  of  trans- 
lation" {bedeutungsloser  Uebersetzungsfehler),  as 
the  Norddeutsche  of  the  loth  of  March,  1915, 
called  it,  which  in  the  Ducame  report  trans- 
formed ' '  conversation ' '  into  ' '  convention ' ' 
(Abkommen).  For  the  edification  of  the  reader, 
I  reproduce  below  the  passage  of  the  manuscript 
where  the  compilers  allege  that  they  find  at  the 


The  Great  Powers  6i 

end  of  the  second  line  a  word  written  in  a  "very 
illegible"  manner  {sehr  undeutlich): 

Everyone,  however,  will  at  a  first  glance  read 
this  word  as  ''conversation^^ 

To  discount  this  rectification,  the  endorse- 
ment which  the  Belgian  General  inscribed  upon 
the  envelope  containing  the  report  has  been 
placed  In  a  line  by  itself.  In  spite  of  the  en- 
treaties of  several  friends,  I  deliberately  avoided 
discussing  this  question  in  La  Belgique  neutre 
et  loyale;  I  considered  it  and  I  still  consider  it 

'  In  this  connection  a  remarkable  fact  has  just  been  brought 
to  light  by  my  compatriot,  Mr.  Passelecq,  who,  as  director  of 
the  Bureau  Documentaire  Beige  (B.D.B.),  disposes  of  numerous 
sources  of  information.  In  a  very  careful  examination  of  the 
White  Bookf  he  says: 

"We  recently  received  a  few  numbers  of  the  monthly 
propaganda  review,  officially  published  at  Berlin,  in  several 
languages,  since  August,  19 14  (and  freely  circulated  in  all 
neutral  countries),  under  the  title  of  Kriegschronik:  KriegS' 
tagebucht  Soldatenbriefz,  Kriegsbilder  (in  French:  Journal  de 
la  guerrey  Lettres  de  soldats  en  campagne.  Illustrations;  in 
Dutch,  Oorlogskroniek;  etc.)  and  with  the  imprimatur  *  Printed 
and  published  by  M.  Berg  at  Berlin.'  Among  these  numbers 
were  included,  for  the  'month  of  November,  191 4,'  a  copy 


62  Belgium  and 

as  puerile;  but  the  Prosecution  insists  and  my 
critics  reproach  me  for  my  silence.  Does  not  P. 
Schumann  {Hat  Belgien  sein  Schicksal  verschuU 
det  ?  A  ntworl  auf  Prof.  Waxweilers  gleichnamige 
Schrift;  Verlag  des  Dresdner  Anzeigers,  p.  30)  ac- 
cuse me  in  this  connection  of  falsifying  the  texts? 
It  can  easily  be  imagined  in  what  circum- 
stances an  endorsement  was  made  by  the 
General  upon  the  envelope  into  which  he  had 
just  slipped  the  rough  draft  of  his  report.  With 
the  red  pencil  in  his  hand,  he  inscribes  on  the 
envelope  a  rubric,  indicating  the  subject  of  the 
document  which  It  contains;  the  General  is  no 


of  the  edition  in  the  French  language  and  also  one  in  the 
German  language. 

"  Now,  what  was  our  surprise,  in  comparing  these  two  simul- 
taneous editions  of  the  same  pamphlet,  to  find  that,  whereas 
the  German  edition  contains,  in  the  German  version  of  the 
Ducame  manuscript,  the  alteration  of  the  Nordd.  Allg.  Zeitg, 
(Abkommenjt  the  French  edition  does  not  contain  it,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  reproduces,  correctly  printed^  the  exact  text 
of  the  manuscript:  *  Conversation.'"  See  the  facsimiles  in 
Passelecq,  Essai  critique  et  notes  sur  ValtSration  officielle  des 
documents  beiges^  p.  40  (Berger-Levrault,  Page  d*histoire,  1916). 
It  is  obvious  that  if,  at  Berlin,  it  was  possible  in  one  edition 
to  print  correctly,  it  was  because  the  word  had  been  correctly 
read. 


The  Great  Powers  63 

jurist;  he  has  no  scruples  as  to  the  choice  of  the 
word:  "What  does  this  report  refer  to?  to 
conventions,  what  the  deuce !  since  I  have  settled 
various  things  with  the  military  attachS,''  and 


,2W^-    ^^^'^^ 


the  General  writes  in  big  letters,  following  up 
his  inscription  with  a  long  flotirish,  as  is  done 
when  a  matter  is  finished:  "Conventions  anglo- 
belges.*'  Notice  carefully  that  he  does  not 
write  "convention''  in  the  singular,  for  the 


64  Belgium  and 

simple  reason  that  in  his  mind  there  are  only 
** certain  things  which  have  been  agreed  upon." 

Now  this  innocent  endorsement — which  Pro- 
fessor Schulte  calls  something  very  essential 
{etwas  sehr  Wesentliches) — is  given,  in  the  accu- 
sations against  Belgium,  the  value  of  judicial 
evidence:  *'In  view  of  this  title,*'  the  Nord- 
deutsche  proclaims  gravely,  '*  no  doubt  can  any 
longer  be  entertained  as  to  the  interpretation 
which  Belgium  herself  put  upon  these  docu- 
ments from  the  point  of  view  of  public  interna- 
tional law  {staatsrechtliche  Bedeutung)  *'  (article 
quoted). 

I  will  add  nothing,  except  perhaps  this. 
Since,  in  order  to  appreciate  the  judicial  value 
of  a  document,  it  suffices  to  know  the  endorse- 
ment under  which  it  has  been  placed  in  an 
envelope  by  a  military  man,  I  also  may  invoke 
a  classifying  rubric  which  the  Norddeutsche 
quoted,  in  passing,  on  the  13th  of  October, 
1914,  but  on  which  it  neglected  to  lay  much 
stress:  it  appears  that  the  famous  envelope  was 


The  Great  Powers  65 

found  in  a  dossier  bearing  this  inscription: 
^'English  Intervention  in  Belgium''  Since  there 
is  a  choice  of  rubrics,  I  retain  the  second. 

This  is  more  important.  In  the  last  ofHcial 
edition,  the  principal  falsification  of  the  text  is 
maintained;  the  essential  phrase:  *'the  entrance 
of  the  English  would  only  take  place  after  the 
violation  of  our  neutrality  by  Germany,"  is 
not  inserted  in  its  proper  place  in  the  German 
translation;  it  is  still  quoted, — exclusively  in 
French,  moreover,  and,  consequently,  it  is 
ignored  by  the  majority  of  German  readers, 
— only  as  an  afterthought,  outside  the  report, 
and  as  if  it  were  a  marginal  note,  added  after 
the  report  had  been  drawn  up:  ''Auf  dem 
Schriftstuck  findet  sich  noch  der  folgende  Rand- 
vermerky 

I  have  shown  by  reproducing  {La  Belgique 
neutre  et  loyale,  p.  178)  a  facsimile  of  this  part 
of  the  report,  how  inaccurate  this  method  of 
presenting  things  is:  in  reality,  the  sentence 
forms  part  of  the  original  text,  it  is  written  by 


66  Belgium  and 

the  same  hand,  at  the  same  moment  as  the  whole 
of  the  draft, — for  the  document  is  a  rough  draft 
freely  sprinkled  with  erasures,  suppressions; 
and  additions.  To  remove  the  sentence  from 
the  text  of  which  it  forms  part,  is  to  commit  a 
forgery. 

Such  are,  in  their  real  form,  the  documents 
put  in  by  the  Prosecution. 

One  thing  in  connection  with  this  now  famous 
military  report  is  surprising:  it  is  that  none  of 
those  in  Germany  who  have  occupied  them^ 
selves  with  it  have  fixed  their  attention  upon 
the  first  two  paragraphs  of  the  document.  They 
will  be  found  in  their  original  form  on  the 
opposite  page. 

These  paragraphs  are  material:  they  mark 
the  beginning  of  the  report;  they  define  the 
nature,  the  object,  and  the  scope  of  the  matter. 
Let  us  read  them  over  again  slowly. 

''The  first  visit  dates  from  the  middle  of 
January.**  The  English  military  attache  came 
then  to  see  the  General:  a  visit  from  one  soldier 


The  Great  Powers 


67 


68  Belgium  and 

to  another.  I  am  going  to  make  this  point 
clearer,  relying  upon  trustworthy  information: 
a  personal  visit,  made  at  the  General's  private 
residence,  and  not  announced  beforehand  in 
any  way. 

Of  what  did  the  attache  speak  in  opening  the 
conversation? 

*'  The  preoccupations  of  the  General  Staff  of  his 
country '  * :  soldiers*  anxieties.  Relative  to  what  ? 
"Ti?  the  general  political  situation  and  to  the 
contingencies  of  war  at  the  moment  J^ 

Were  these  anxieties  extraordinary?  The 
visit  took  place  in  the  middle  of  January,  1906. 
Now  I  find  in  a  collection  of  diplomatic  docu- 
ments published  by  the  Berlin  Department  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  of  which  I  will  speak  later  on 
{Belgische  Aktenstticke: — 1905-1914.  Heraus- 
gegehen  vom  Auswdrtigen  Ami),  a  letter  of  the 
14th  January,  1906,  addressed  to  the  Belgian 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  by  the  chargS 
d'affaires  in  London,  and  I  read  in  it:  ''The 
Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs  has  several  times 


The  Great  Powers  69 

of  late  repeated  to  the  various  Ambassadors 
accredited  to  London  that  Great  Britain  was 
pledged  to  France  in  the  matter  of  Morocco, 
and  that  she  would  carry  out  her  engagements 
to  the  end,  even  in  the  event  of  a  Franco- 
German  war,  whatever  it  might  cost  her.  The 
press  and  public  opinion  manifest  the  same 
sentiments.  The  various  cases  of  friction  which 
have  arisen  between  this  country  and  Germany, 
more  particularly  at  the  time  of  the  South 
African  War,  are  recalled,  and  it  is  added  that 
if  the  Algeciras  Conference,  which  has  been 
held  at  Germany's  request,  should  fail  through 
the  latter*s  fault,  not  only  would  all  hope  of 
an  Ariglo-German  understanding  be  lost,  but 
actual  hostility  between  the  two  countries 
would  be  provoked." 

So  that  in  January,  1906,  there  actually 
were  very  grave  anxieties  in  England. 

But  did  that  touch  Belgium?  Undoubtedly, 
for  here  we  have  the  important  communica- 
tion, which  was  the  object  of  the  visit: 


70  Belgium  and 

**An  expeditionary  force  of  about  a  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  men  was  contemplated  in  the 
event  of  an  attack  on  Belgium.  This  is  plain 
enough:  an  expedition  was  contemplated  should 
Belgium  be  attacked.  What  then?  In  1870, 
on  the  revelation  of  the  secret  negotiations 
between  Napoleon  III.  and  Bismarck  for  the 
annexation  of  Belgium,  language  much  more 
categorical  had  been  used:  on  the  30th  of  July, 
the  English  Cabinet  had  decided  that  England's 
pledge  to  Belgium  would  be  kept,  even  were 
this  to  lead  to  war,  and  it  had  obtained  from 
Parliament  an  almost  unanimous  vote  of  an 
extraordinary  credit  of  two  millions  sterling 
and  a  supplementary  contingent  of  twenty 
thousand  men.  Gladstone  had  officially  told 
the  Belgian  Minister  that  **the  incident  of  the 
secret  Franco-Prussian  treaty  was  of  the  great- 
est gravity,  and  that  he  pledged  England  still 
further  in  the  affairs  of  Belgium."  Compared 
with  all  the  political  manoeuvring  of  1870,  how 
innocent  the  step  taken  in  1906  appears.    An 


The  Great  Powers  71 

English  military  attache  comes  quite  simply,  in 
a  confidential  capacity,  to  inform  the  Chief  of 
the  Belgian  General  Staff  of  a  projected  expedi- 
tion of  troops  should  Belgium  be  attacked. 

It  was  so  entirely  an  informal  piece  of  infor- 
mation, and  nothing  more,  that  the  military 
attache  hastened  ^*to  ask  how  this  action  would 
be  interpreted  by  Belgium/'  To  such  a  ques- 
tion, what  was  bound  to  be  the  answer  of  any 
Chief  of  Staff  just  informed  that  in  case  his 
country,  conventionally  neutral,  should  be 
attacked,  one  of  the  Powers  who  had  guaranteed 
that  neutrality  would  come  to  its  aid?  Exactly 
what  the  Belgian  General  actually  replied: 
''From  the  military  point  of  view,  this  action 
can  only  be  favourable,  but  this  questiofi  of 
intervention  (note  the  word  in  passing)  also  con- 
cerns  the  political  powers,  and  therefore  I  am 
bound  to  discuss  it  with  the  Minister  for  War,'' 

As  to  questions  of  a  military  order,  the  Bel- 
gian Chief  of  Staff  had  always,  in  the  course 
of  his  career,  considered  this  domain  as  his 


72  Belgium  and 

own,  because  he  had  all  its  responsibilities:  *'it 
was" — I  am  authorized  to  make  use  of  his  own 
expression — ''  a  rule  which  he  had  imposed  upon 
himself  in  all  strategical  or  tactical  work  or 
studies,  for  he  held  that  these  questions,  being 
specially  within  his  province  and  competence, 
depended  upon  the  General  Staff  alone/'  So 
he  addressed  no  report  to  the  Minister  of  War 
upon  these  conversations  with  the  English 
military  attache  until  they  had  come  to  an 
end. 

If  I  desired  to  pursue  the  careful  analysis 
of  the  Belgian  General's  report,  I  might  multi- 
ply proofs  of  its  incontestable  correctness. 
Thus  I  read  a  little  further  on:  ''Mr.  Barnard- 
iston  inquired  if  our  dispositions  were  sufficient 
to  ensure  the  defence  of  the  country  during  the 
crossing  over  and  the  transport  of  the  English 
troops,  a  time  which  he  estimated  at  about  ten 
days.  I  replied  that  the  fortresses  of  Namur 
and  of  Liege  were  safe  from  any  sudden  attack 
and  that  in  four  days  our  field  army,  one  hund- 


The  Great  Powers  73 

red  thousand  strong,  would  be  in  a  position  to 
intervene/* 

Still  further  on,  mark  the  expressions:  **We 
could  reckon,  that,  in  twelve  or  thirteen  days  there 
would  be  landed,  etc." — ''He  asked  me  to  exam- 
ine the  question  of  the  transport  of  these 
forces  towards  the  part  of  the  country  where  they 
would  he  useful y — "I  insisted  once  more  as 
energetically  as  possible  upon  the  necessity  of 
hastening  the  maritime  transports,  so  that  the 
English  troops  should  be  with  us  between  the 
eleventh  and  the  twelfth  day.** 

How  clearly  the  idea  stands  out  in  all  these 
lines  that  it  was  a  question  of  coming  to  the 
help  oj  Belgium  after  she  had  been  attacked/ 

The  authors  of  the  White  Book  alone  wander 
from  the  evidence  into  marginal  commentaries. 
They  attach,  for  instance,  great  importance 
to  the  fact  that,  among  the  documents  found 
at  Brussels,  was  a  map  of  the  deploying  move- 
ments of  the  French  army,  and  they  boldly 
draw  this  conclusion:  Belgium  was  not  only  in 


74  Belgium  and 

agreement  with  England  but  ''the  three  allied 
Powers  had  settled  in  an  exact  manner  (genau 
festgesetzt)  the  plans  for  a  co-operation  of  the  allied 
armies"  (Aktenstticke  zum  Kriegsausbruch,  p.  98). 
Now,  I  am  in  a  position  to  declare  that  this  map 
was  an  "exercise  map"  made  by  one  of  the 
officers  attached  to  the  Belgian  General  Staff; 
this  officer  drew  several  of  them,  at  the  time 
of  the  conversations  of  1906,  as  well  as  before 
and  after  that  period,  with  a  view  to  keeping 
the  General  Staff  informed  as  to  the  possible 
strategic  deploying  movements  of  the  French 
— and  also  of  the  German  army.  These  maps 
were  merely  suggestive  schemes,  and  I  add  from 
information  given  me  by  General  Ducame 
himself,  that  no  map  of  any  kind  was  drawn  up 
in  the  course  of  the  conversations  with  the 
English  attache;  to  this  the  dossier  foimd  at 
Brussels  bears  ample  testimony. 

In  order  to  show  how  completely,  even  from 
the  purely  military  point  of  view,  Belgium 
after  these  conversations  was  in  exactly    the 


The  Great  Powers  75 

same  position  as  before  with  regard  to  her 
guarantors,  I  revealed  in  La  Belgique  neutre  et 
loyale  (p.  179)  that  shortly  after  1906,  an 
"exercise  journey''  of  the  Belgian  General 
Staff  had  had  as  a  tactical  theme  a  supposed 
disembarkation  of  British  troops  in  Belgium. 
I  can  be  still  more  precise  today;  here  is  the 
list  of  the  directions  given  to  the  "exercise 
journeys"  during  the  five  years  which  followed 
the  conversations: 

1906,  towards  Germany; 

1907,  towards  France; 

1908,  towards  England; 

1909,  towards  Germany; 

1910,  towards  France; 

In  particular,  the  journey  of  1908  was  based 
upon  the  hypothesis  that  France  and  England 
were  making  common  cause  in  order  to  cross  Bel- 
gium in  a  war  against  Germany. 

Can  we  indeed  wish  for  facts  more  destructive 
to  the  Accusation? 


76  Belgium  and 

One  of  the  accusers  of  Belgitim,  Doctor 
Richard  Grasshoflf,^  has  himself  felt  this. 

So  he  passes  lightly  over  the  commentaries 
of  the  semi-official  pamphlets  and  confines 
himself  to  saying  (I  give  a  simimary  of  his 
argtiment) : 

''Let  us  set  aside  all  incidents  susceptible 
of  more  than  one  interpretation  (p.  6)  .  .  . 
let  us  give  no  consideration  to  the  instinctive 
suppositions  which  the  fact  immediately  sug- 
gests in  every  reasonable  mind  (p.  7).  This 
remains  none  the  less  true:  the  Belgian  Govem- 

'  Doctor  (juris,  et  phil.)  Richard  Grasshoff,  Belgiens  Schuld, 
zugleich  eine  Antwort  an  Professor  Dr,  Waxweiler,  Reimer, 
Berlin,  191 5 — French  translation,  La  Belgique  coupable — 
same  publisher. 

Since  I  am  entering  into  a  discussion  with  this  author  he 
will  allow  me  to  point  out  that  he  has  very  inaccurately 
attributed  to  me  tendencies  and  expressions  which  are  not 
to  be  found  in  my  book.  He  writes  :  "  As  a  German  endowed 
with  a  mediocre  judgment,  the  greatest  concession  which  Mr. 
Waocweiler^s  magnanimity  makes  to  our  intelligence  (p.  7  of  the 
French  translation);  here  is  the  corresponding  passage  of 
the  German  edition:  "Wir  woUen  als  besonnene  Deutsche 
von  massigem  Urteil — dass  uns  Herr  Waxweiler  grossmiitig 
in  hochsten  Falle  der  Einsicht  zugestehV^  (pp.  lo-ii). 

I  never  wrote  anything  of  the  kind. 

I  said,  in  connection  with  Germany's  diplomatic  proceed- 


The  Great  Powers  77 

ment  ought  to  have  warned  Germany,  for  if, 
in  the  future,  England  should  have  wished 
some  day  to  land  troops  in  Belgium  without 
waiting  for  the  German  attack, — and  the  Bel- 
gian Government  must  have  known  from  his- 
tory that  England  was  perfidious  enough  to  do 
so, — she  had  made  herself  acquainted  with  all 
the  technical  details  necessary.  Now,  Ger- 
many, a  guarantor  like  England,  had  a  right 
to  know  the  same  things.  The  Belgian  Govern- 
ment ought  to  have  asked  itself:  Now  that 
England  has  secured  for  herself  such  a  monopoly 

ings  of  the  29th  of  July  to  the  4th  of  August,  19 14,  which 
revealed  such  perversity  of  intention  towards  Belgium: 
"Germany's  best  friends,  even  Germans  themselves  who 
were  able  during  the  agonizing  weeks  which  our  country  ex- 
perienced to  keep  a  sense  of  moderation,  surely  must  feel, 
in  the  presence  of  these  facts,  an  inexpressible  uneasiness  and, 
to  speak  plainly,  a  disquieting  remorse?"  (p.  117).  And  in 
the  German  translation:  "Empfinden  die  besten  Freunde 
Deutschlands,  ja  die  Deutschen  selbst,  die  trotz  den  bangen 
Ereignissen  der  letzten  Monate  ein  massiges  Urteil  bewahrt 
haben,  nicht  ein  unbeschreibliches  Unbehagen  und,  tma  es 
ganz  zu  sagen,  nagende  Reue?"  (p.  102). 

None  of  my  texts,  as  can  be  seen,  contain  anything  which 
justifies  the  author's  remark. 

In  his  pamphlet,  Dr.  Grasshoff  repeats  this  anno3dng  mis- 
construction three  times  (pp.  10,  17,  45). 


78  Belgium  and 

of  information,  will  Germany  always  regard 
herself  as  bound  by  a  treaty  of  guarantees,  one 
of  the  contracting  parties  of  which  threatens 
to  secure  for  herself  the  lion's  share?  Does 
Germany  believe  in  Albion's   fidelity?"   (pp. 

8-9). 

In  short,  for  Dr.  Grasshoff,  the  whole  accu- 
sation against  Belgium  might  be  stmimed  up 
thus:  Belgium,  according  to  him,  had  destroyed 
the  balance  of  her  neutrality  by  granting  Eng- 
land a  monopoly  through  the  communication 
of  military  secrets.  Professor  Frank,  in  his 
turn,  sees  in  this  imputation  the  main  indict- 
ment against  Belgium  (Die  Belgische  Neutral- 
itdt,  p.  31). 

But  we  have  only  to  read  General  Ducarne's 
complete  report  {La  Belgique  neutre  el  loyale, 
p.  283  et  seq.)  to  see  that  the  Chief  of  the  Bel- 
gian General  Staff  confided  no  Belgian  military 
secrets  whatever  to  his  interlocutor;  on  the 
contrary,  he  received  very  interesting  confi- 
dences  concerning    the   English    dispositions; 


The  Great  Powers  79 

he  arranged  measures  with  a  view  to  concerted 
action  on  the  part  of  the  two  armies,  always  in 
view  of  ''combined  operations  in  the  contingency 
of  a  German  aggression^"  He  confined  himself 
to  "convincing  the  English  attache  of  the  Belgian 
army's  determination  to  impede  the  enemy's 
movements  as  much  as  possible,  and  not  to 
take  refuge  from  the  beginning  in  Antwerp/* 
Nothing  more. 

I  am  happy  to  be  able  to  publish  here  a 
recent  declaration  of  the  former  Chief  of  the 
Belgian  General  Staff:  If  a  French  or  German 
military  attache  had  addressed  himself  to  him 
and  had  invited  him  to  take  measures  with  a 
view  to  combining  an  eventual  defence  of  the 
guaranteed  territory,  he  would  have  given  him 
exactly  the  same  reception.  But  this  would 
not  have  prevented  the  General  Staff  from 
keeping  its  own  dispositions  secret  and  from 
refraining  to  communicate  to  any  of  the  mili- 
tary attaches  those  measures  which  it  might 
have  adopted  with  the  others. 


80  Belgium  and 

The  accusers  of  Belgium  really  lose  sight  of 
the  fact  that  she  was  an  independent,  sovereign 
State,  in  complete  control  of  her  own  private 
affairs,  and  that  she  did  not  want  any  kind  of 
infeodation;  she  adopted  for  her  own  defence 
the  measures  *' which  it  suited  her  to  take,'* 
as  was  declared  in  1887  by  the  former  Belgian 
Minister,  FrSre-Orban,  who  seized  that  oppor- 
timity  to  recall  to  the  Chamber  these  words  of 
Marshal  von  Moltke:  '*It  is  Belgium's  own 
business  to  choose  her  means  of  defence"  (C/. 
Descamps,  La  Neutralite  de  la  Belgigue,  p. 
409,  par.  5:  ''The  choice  of  appropriate  means 
of  defence"). 

Well, — since  the  accusers  of  Belgium  show 
themselves  so  suspicious  with  regard  to  the 
r61e  of  foreign  military  attaches  at  Brussels,  I 
will  inform  them  of  a  precedent  which  is  cer- 
tainly piquant.  On  the  12th  of  May,  1875, 
Baron  Lambermont,  who  had  long  directed 
Belgium's  diplomacy,  wrote  to  M.  Jules  De- 
vaux,  the  chief  of  King  Leopold's  II.'s  Cabinet: 


The  Great  Powers  8i 

"I  was  told  and  retold  in  almost  supplicating 
terms:  Namur  and  Liege  must  be  placed  in  a 
state  of  defence.  It  is  not  a  question  of  exten- 
sive works,  but  only  of  a  system  involving  a 
modest  outlay.  It  was  even  pointed  out  that 
these  works  were  indispensable  in  both  direc- 
tions; 'you  can  declare  when  proposing  them 
that  you  are  carrying  them  out  quite  as  much 
with  a  view  to  an  army  coming  from  the  other 
side.  So  we  are  not  asking  for  any  privileges, 
but  we  attach  great  importance  to  the  Une  of 
the  Meuse  being  barred. ' 

"To  sum  up,  I  cannot  better  condense  my 
interlocutor's  meaning  than  by  repeating  the 
words  he  used:  'AH  we  ask  of  you,  is  to  hold 
out  for  five  days;  that  done,  yotir  task  will  be 
accomplished.'" 

Baron  Lambermont's  interlocutor  was  no 
other  than  the  German  military  attache  at 
Brussels,  Major  von  Sommerfeld.  He  had 
come  to  see,  not  a  military  man,  but  the  most 
eminent    personality    of    the    Department    of 


82  Belgium  and 

Foreign  Affairs.  He  had  not  merely  asked 
him  to  adopt  practical  measures,  in  common 
with  his  own  Government,  in  case  the  German 
army  should  be  obUged,  conformably  to  the 
treaties,  to  help  the  Belgian  army  in  the  defence 
of  the  territory,  but  he  had  pressed  him  to 
engage  his  Government  in  an  undertaking  then 
quite  novel,  to  modify  the  defensive  system  of 
the  country  profoundly, — and  this  simply  in 
order  to  meet  Germany's  strategic  needs. 

The  military  conversation  of  1906  is  consid- 
ered an  act  of  treachery  in  Germany  today; 
what  would  have  been  said  of  it  if  it  had  had 
the  importance  of_the  diplomatic  conversation 
of  1875?' 

'  It  is  not  idle  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  in  1875  it  was 
Germany  who  was  urging  Belgium  to  place  Namur  and  Li^ge 
in  a  state  of  defence. 

Professor  Schulte  will  doubtless  be  very  much  surprised  to 
learn  this,  for  in  the  conjectures  which  he  piles  up  in  order 
to  incriminate  Belgium's  policy,  he  represents  the  fortifica- 
tions of  the  Meuse  as  directed  against  Germany  (in  particular 
p.  86).  It  is  of  very  slight  importance,  moreover,  that  Moltke 
later  expressed  a  different  opinion  to  King  Leopold  II.;  this 
change  of  opinion  shows,  on  the  contrary,  how  well  advised 
Belgium  was  in  consulting  her  own  interests  alone  when  she 


The  Great  Powers  83 

That  the  conversations  of  1906  did  not  go 
beyond  what  was  strictly  compatible  with  the 
obligations  of  neutrality,  cannot  be  contested 
by  any  sound  mind.  But  it  is  possible  to  assert, 
in  addition,  that  they  had  no  influence  what- 
ever on  Belgium's  foreign  policy. 

In  fact,  we  have  recently  come  into  the 
possession  of  a  precious  source  of  information 
emanating  from  the  Berlin  Department  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  which  gives  it  no  common 
value  for  the  defence  of  Belgian  policy.  It 
is  a  series  of  diplomatic  reports  addressed  to 
Brussels  by  ten  Belgian  Ministers  and  charges 
d'affaires,  who  represented  Belgium  in  Berlin, 
London,  and  Paris  between  1905--1914 :  Belgische 
Aktenstilcke;  I  have  already  referred  to  them 
(p.  68).    I  will  not  dwell  upon  the  fact  that  the 

decided  upon  the  measures  suitable  for  ensuring  the  defence 
of  her  territory. 

M.  Schulte  will  likewise  be  astonished  to  learn  that,  to- 
wards 1890,  there  was  quite  a  commotion  in  France,  concern- 
ing this  very  project  of  the  fortifications  of  the  Meuse,  brought 
forward  in  1887;  it  was  affirmed  that  the  project  formed  part 
of  an  agreement  binding  Belgium  to  Germany.  I  have 
already  referred  to  this  unjust  campaign  above  (p.  28). 


84  Belgium  and 

selection  of  reports  leaves  a  very  different  im- 
pression on  the  mind  from  that  which  the  com- 
plete series  would  give,  if  it  were  published; 
nor  will  I  enquire  in  what  measure  these  reports 
explain  the  policy  of  this  or  that  European 
Power.  Taking  Belgium's  point  of  view  alone, 
I  perceive  that  independently  of  all  the  personal 
opinions  which  may  be  found  in  them,  we  must 
look  into  these  documents  as  if  we  were  look- 
ing at  the  image  of  an  object  in  a  mirror;  thus 
considered,  the  reports  give  in  some  sort  as 
by  reflection  precise  indications  as  to  Belgium's 
foreign  policy. 

Let  us  then  open  the  collection  which  the 
German  Chancellery  has  thought  it  well  to 
make  public,  and  let  us  seek  in  it  what  the 
Belgian  Ministers,  accredited  to  the  three 
great  capitals,  wrote  on  the  subject  of  the 
direction  of  policy  in  which  they  collaborated. 
In  the  hundred  and  forty  pages  of  the  Akten- 
stticke  we  shall  not  find  one  word,  not  one  allu- 
sion to  an  infeodation  of  Belgian  policy  to  any 


The  Great  Powers  85 

one  of  the  three  great  neighbouring  Powers, 
and,  in  particular,  to  England.  Opportunities 
for  such  allusions  were,  however,  innumerable: 
the  very  first  page  of  the  collection  deals  with 
the  tension  in  the  relations  between  Prance  and 
England  on  the  one  hand,  and  Germany  on 
the  other;  we  are  on  the  morrow  of  Tangiers 
and  on  the  eve  of  Algeciras.  We  tread  on 
burning  ground.  Do  we  observe  on  the  part 
of  the  Belgian  diplomatists  any  hesitation  in 
venturing  upon  it,  any  constraint  in  speaking 
to  their  Government  of  the  conflicts  which  are 
in  progress  or  in  preparation?  None.  They 
set  forth  their  opinions  openly.  In  this  col- 
lection, gathered  together  by  the  adversary, 
in  which  he  has  obviously  included  only  those 
documents  which  promised  some  reinforcement 
of  his  case,  there  is  not  one  thought,  expressed 
or  implied,  which ^makes  it  possible  to  incrimi- 
nate Belgium's  policy  in  any  degree  whatever. 
These  reports  are  exactly  such  as  we  should 
expect  to  find  in  the  archives  of  a  country 


86  Belgium  and 

whose  every  attitude  in  foreign  affairs  was  gov- 
erned, as  I  have  shown,  by  anxiety  to  ensure 
the  Ufe  of  the  nation  and  avoid  every  form  of 
subjection.  Whatever  the  event  and  wherever 
it  may  happen,  Belgium's  representatives  al- 
ways judge  it  from  the  national  point  of  view, 
not  only  ten  years  ago,  in  September,  1905 
(Aktenstiicke,  p.  9:  ^^  From  our  point  of  view^ 
it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  Secretary  of  State 
at  Berlin  is  right")*  but  also  on  the  eve  of  war, 
in  July,  1914  {id.,  p.  139:  ''So  far  as  we  are 
concerned  J  we  are  not  called  upon  to  take  sides'*). 
Thus,  the  ten  Belgian  diplomatists  are  com- 
pletely ignorant  of  the  so-called  ** connivance" 
of  Belgium  with  the  Entente.  Now,  only 
those  who  know  nothing  of  diplomatic  organi- 
zation could  imagine  that  for  ten  consecutive 
years,  ten  different  representatives  of  a  country, 
accredited  to  three  neighbouring  governments, 
could  have  remained  systematically  in  igno- 
rance of  decisive  acts,  which  would  have  drawn 
the  national  policy  into  a  clearly  defined  course 


The  Great  Powers  87 

with  regard  to  these  three  governments.  This 
would  have  been  all  the  more  impossible  in  the 
case  of  Belgium  during  this  period,  because 
one  of  the  Ministers  whose  name  appears  most 
often  in  the  list  of  the  published  reports,  Count 
Greindl,  Minister  at  Berlin,  enjoyed  an  author- 
ity in  Belgian  diplomatic  circles  due  to  his 
age  and  experience.  The  published  reports 
confirm  in  this  respect  in  a  singular  manner 
what  I  have  said  elsewhere  of  this  diplomatist 
(La  Belgigue  neutre  et  loyale,  p.  181),  namely 
that  "it  was  customary  to  communicate  to 
him  from  time  to  time  documents  bearing  upon 
the  international  situation  of  the  country.'* 

But  let  us  turn  over  the  leaves  of  the  col- 
lection more  attentively,  and  let  us  see  if  we 
shall  not  discover  in  it  some  special  references 
to  the  military  conversations  of  1906. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  we  do  find  such  references 
— and  unable  to  pass  them  over  in  silence,  the 
Accusation  has  resorted  to  the  expedient  of 
representing  the  opinions  expressed  by  the  Bel- 


88  Belgium  and 

gian  diplomats  as  ^* warnings"  addressed  to 
their  Government,  pointing  out  the  perils  of  an 
alleged  new  policy.  The  propagandist  pam- 
phlet La  neutrality  Beige  says,  for  instance: 
'*Coimt  Greindl  warns  his  Government  insist- 
ently against  the  terrible  danger  to  which 
Belgium  has  exposed  herself  by  her  adhesion 
to  the  Powers  of  the  Entente"  (p.  7);  the  pam- 
phlet again  says:  ''With  all  the  lucidity  permis- 
sible from  a  diplomatist  to  his  Government, 
Count  Greindl  reminded  his,  that  it  was  violat- 
ing its  duties  of  neutrality  in  binding  itself  by 
subversive  engagements"  {id^\  and  farther  on : 
*'The  Belgian  Government  did  not  lack  warn- 
ings, but  it  remained  blind  to  the  end"  (p.  8). 
Professor  Honn,  in  his  article  '*Aus  belgischen 
Archiven"  (in  Das  grosser e  Deutschland^  2i 
August,  1915,  p.  1 123),  does  not  hesitate  to 
conclude  that  "the  obstinacy  of  the  Belgian 
Government  in  not  following  the  advice  of  its 
diplomatists  makes  its  guilt  doubly  great." 
The   official   collection   itself   returns   to   this 


The  Great  Powers  89 

theme:  "It  was,"  we  read  at  the  end  of  the  in- 
troduction, **  a  misfortune  for  Belgium  that  she 
would  not  listen  to  the  voices  of  her  diplo- 
matists." 

The  thesis  that  the  Belgian  Government  had 
received  remonstrances  from  its  representatives 
abroad  claims  to  be  founded  more  especially 
upon  a  report  sent  in  191 1  by  Count  Greindl 
to  the  Foreign  Office  at  Brussels;  this  report, 
however,  is  not  reproduced  in  the  diplomatic 
collection  of  the  Belgische  Aktenstilcke ;  the 
Norddeutsche  of  the  13th  of  October,  1914,  pub- 
lished only  an  ingeniously  selected  fragment 
which  was  reproduced  in  the  last  White  Book 
(P-  59)*  I  have  already  stated  (La  Belgique 
neutre  et  loyale,  pp.  180,  181)  that  Count 
Greindl's  report  was  not  made  on  the  occasion 
of  the  conversations  of  1906  with  the  English 
military  attachS;  it  furnishes  the  Department 
with  the  opinion  which  the  latter  had  asked 
for  concerning  an  essay  written  by  a  superior 
functionary  and  entitled:  '*What  will  Belgium 


90  Belgium  and 

do  in  the  event  of  a  Franco-German  war?" 
In  his  reply,  which  constitutes  a  long  memoran- 
dum, Count  Greindl  considers  various  even- 
tualities of  the  violation  of  Belgian  neutrality. 
He  dwells  first  of  all,  in  curiously  prophetic 
language  be  it  noted,  on  the  German  danger; 
then  he  points  out  the  Franco-British  danger. 
He  makes  certain  reservations  concerning  the 
work  submitted  to  him,  but  nowhere  does  he 
reveal  any  intention  to  criticize  or  warn  the 
Government  with  regard  to  its  policy.  And 
yet  he  alludes  to  the  conversations  of  1906:  it 
was  the  opportune  moment  for  minatory  words; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  the  Count  expresses  him- 
self in  terms  which  show  complete  confidence; 
"we"  know  what  to  think;  'Ve*'  have  shown 
that  we  would  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  intimi- 
dated, etc. 

The  same  mental  attitude  is  apparent 
both  in  the  other  reports  of  Count  Greindl 
and  in  those  of  his  colleagues  of  London 
and    Paris.     The    Accusation    would    be    un- 


The  Great  Powers  91 

able  to  bring  a  single  quotation  to  support 
its  thesis. 

Hence  it  is  evident  that  the  passages  in 
which  the  Belgian  diplomatists  speak  of  the 
military  conversations  are  to  be  taken  merely  at 
their  face  value:  they  have  no  didactic  intention 
whatever. 

Now  all  these  passages,  without  exception^ 
concur  in  showing  that  Belgium's  representa- 
tives knew  the  conversations  had  not  had  the 
least  influence  upon  the  policy  of  the  country. 

The  first  mention  of  the  conversations  of 
1906  is  that  of  the  5th  of  April  of  that  very  year, 
in  a  report  of  Count  Greindrs — a  definite  proof 
that  the  Belgian  Government,  far  from  dis- 
simulating what  it  had  just  learnt,  announced 
the  fact,  without  any  delay,  to  the^'father  of  Bel- 
gian diplomacy.  And  how  did  the  latter  express 
himself  that  day,  when  he  had  just  been  told 
about  the  matter  and  while  his  impressions 
were  still  fresh?  ''If,''  he  said,  "any  doubt 
(as  to  the  significance  of  a  visit  of  the  King  of 


92  Belgium  and 

England  to  Paris)  could  still  subsist,  the  sin- 
gular advance  made  by  Colonel  Barnardiston 
to  General  Ducame  would  have  dissipated  it." 
{Belgische  Aktenstilcke,  p.  21.)  Nothing  more: 
no  allusion,  even  distant,  either  to  a  convention 
or  to  any  infeodation  whatever  of  Belgian 
policy;  the  diplomatist  knows  that  nothing  of 
the  sort  has  taken  place. 

A  year  later,  in  April,  1907,  Count  Greindl 
has  another  opportunity  of  giving  his  judgment 
and,  a  characteristic  thing,  he  practically  makes 
use  of  the  same  terms  as  on  the  first  occasion. 
"We  ourselves,''  he  now  writes,  "have  had 
occasion  to^ecprd  the  singular  overtures  made 
by  Colonel  Barnardiston  to  General  Ducarne 
{id.,  p.  34). 

And,  on  a  third  occasion,  four  years  later,  he 
again  expressed  himself  in  a  similar  manner: 
"It  is  a  continuation  of  the  singular  propositions 
which  were  made  some  years  ago  to  General 
Ducarne  by  Colonel  Barnardiston'*  (iJ.,  p. 
102). 


The  Great  Powers  93 

Advances — overtures — propositions :  it  was 
solely  in  this  aspect,  which  was  strictly  in 
accordance  with  facts,  that  the  military  conver- 
sations of  1906  appeared  to  the  Belgian  diplo- 
matist, whose  testimony  the  Accusation  so 
readily  invokes. 

What  is  more,  there  is  in  the  report  of  which 
a  fragment  was  published  by  the  Norddeutsche, 
a  sentence  showing  that  the  same  diplomatist 
considered  that  the  projects  communicated  in 
1906  by  the  English  military  attacM  took  into 
consideration  a  possible  resistance  of  the  Bel- 
gian Army  to  the  advance  of  the  English  troops. 
He  wrote,  in  fact:  ''The  English  army  would 
enter  our  country  at  once  by  the  north-west, 
which  would  give  it  the  advantage  of  entering 
into  action  immediately,  of  meeting  the  Belgian 
army,  if  we  risked  a  battle,  in  a  region  where  we 
should  not  have  the  support  of  any  fortress, 
of  seizing  provinces  rich  in  resources  of  every 
kind,  in  any  case,  of  hindering  our  mobilization, 
or  of  allowing  it  only  after  having  obtained  from 


94  Belgium  and 

us  formal  pledges  that  this  mobilization  would 
be  made  to  England's  advantage.'* 

The  independence  of  Belgium  with  regard 
to  her  guarantors  is  thus  manifest  on  all  sides. 
It  is  so  great  and  so  real  that  a  year  before  the 
war,  Baron  Beyens,  Belgian  Minister  at  Berlin, 
ex-Minister  of  King  Albert's  Household  and 
a  person  in  a  position  to  be  particularly  well 
informed  as  to  the  tendencies  of  the  foreign 
policy  of  his  cotmtry,  was  able  to  write  in  one 
of  the  diplomatic  reports  which  Germany  has 
published:  *'The  danger  would  appear  real 
and  urgent  if  the  partition  of  the  Congo  became, 
under  England's  auspices,  the  object  of  secret 
negotiations  between  the  three  great  Powers 
who  are  our  neighbours  in  Europe,  and  if  our 
African  spoils  became  the  instrument  of  a 
pacific  understanding  between  them.  But 
things  have  not  come  to  this.  We  must  none 
the  less,  in  my  opinion,  keep  our  eyes  open  to 
all  the  possible  consequences  of  an  Anglo- 
German  understanding"  {Belgische  Aktenstilcke, 


The  Great  Powers  95 

p.  124).  The  same  Minister,  writing  three 
months  before  the  war,  and  calling  his  Govern- 
ment's attention  to  the  fact  that  an  opinion 
somewhat  less  hostile  to  the  Entente  appeared 
to  be  forming  at  Berlin,  concluded  that  for 
Belgium  the  most  interesting  question  was  to 
know  if,  in  the  event  of  an  international  conflict, 
England  would  be  as  fully  disposed  as  in  191 1 
to  take  her  stand  beside  France,  and  if,  in  a 
word,  Belgium  would  still  have  to  dread  the 
entry  of  English  soldiers  {id.,  p.  233). 

Even  if  we  rely  exclusively  on  the  documents 
of  the  Accusation  and  confine  ourselves  to  the 
ground  it  has  chosen,  we  may  thus  evoke  truly 
striking  justifications  of  Belgium's  policy — to 
quote  the  expression  used  in  my  presence  by 
an  eminent  neutral  personage. 

In  its  eagerness  to  impeach  Belgian  policy, 
the  Accusation  even  brings  forward  facts  which, 
on  examination,  turn  against  itself.  Professor 
Schulte,  for  instance,  attaches  great  importance 


96  Belgium  and 

{Von  der  Neutralitdt  BelgienSy  p.  io6  et  seq.)  to 
a  speech^  delivered  on  the  nth  of  December, 
1909,  in  the  Belgian  Senate  by  a  former  Minister, 
M.  de  Favereau,  who  held  the  portfolio  of 
Foreign  Affairs  at  the  very  moment  when  the 
military  conversations  of  1906  took  place.  M. 
de  Favereau*s  intervention  in  Parliament  was 
caused  by  a  discussion  on  the  military  reform 
which  introduced  general  service;  the  ex-Minis- 
ter  wished  to  rally  his  friends  of  the  Right  to 
the  project :  he  did  not  hesitate  to  speak  to  them 

'  As  to  the  text  of  this  speech,  I  really  do  not  see  why  Pro- 
fessor Schiilte  says  that  the  official  report  of  the  Annales 
parlementaires  has  been  modified,  or  why  he  thinks  there 
are  differences  between  this  report  and  a  correspondence 
sent  from  Brussels  to  the  Kreuzzeitung  of  Berlin.  The  first 
paragraph  which  he  wishes  to  add  to  the  official  report  (p. 
122)  occurs  farther  on  in  the  text  of  the  speech  (p.  123  at  the 
end);  the  second  paragraph  (p.  123-124)  occurs  p.  126-127; 
finally,  the  third  paragraph  (p.  125)  occurs  on  that  very  page. 
The  correspondent  of  the  Kreuzzeitung  merely  emphasised 
certain  ideas,  but  the  text  which  was  communicated  in  the 
Senate  is  identical  with  that  which  was  printed  in  the  Annales 
parlementaires,  I  need  hardly  deal  with  the  quite  gratuitous 
assertion  (p.  109)  that  if  the  correspondent  of  another  German 
newspaper,  a  few  days  after  the  speech  had  been  delivered, 
gave  an  inaccurate  version  of  a  material  passage,  it  was 
because  he  had  probably  been  semi-officially  invited  to  do  so. 


The  Great  Powers  97 

in  severe  language,  nor  to  lay  upon  them  the 
weight  of  the  responsibilities  which  threatened 
them. 

/  The  thesis  which  he  sought  to  combat  was 
that  of  the  supposed  tranquillity  created  by 
the  treaties  of  1839;  it  was  a  false  tranquillity, 
explained  the  orator,  who  took  this  opportunity 
to  define  once  more  the  very  realistic  policy 
imposed  by  permanent  neutrality  both  on 
Belgium  and  on  her  guarantors. 

Let  us  beware,  said  M.  de  Favereau,  of  think- 
ing that  in  1830  the  Powers  were  swayed  by  any 
consideration  but  that  of  their  own  interests, 
or  that  they  will  be  swayed  by  any  other  con- 
sideration in  the  future.  They  will  intervene 
in  our  favour  only  exactly  within  the  limits  of 
those  interests.  The  example  of  1870  is  always 
being  quoted  to  us,  and  we  are  reminded  of  the 
protective  action  of  England,  who  at  that  time 
addressed  the  two  belligerents  in  our  favour. 
Well,  since  1870  the  situation  has  changed 
profoundly:  will  the  new  policy  which  England 


98  Belgium  and 

seems  to  have  adopted  enable  her  to  play  the 
same  part  to  us  any  longer?  When  the  day  of 
danger  comes,  will  she  not  be  bound  by  engage- 
ments to  one  of  the  belligerents  and  will  her  influ- 
ence still  be  at  our  service?  I  base  my  judgment, 
declared  the  orator,  upon  what  I  saw  as  a 
Minister;  I  regret  to  be  unable,  by  reason  of 
the  discretion  which  I  must  observe,  to  set 
forth  things  here  in  detail  to  you.  But  let  us 
remember  that,  in  our  position,  we  are  necessa- 
rily without  allies;  we  remain  isolated;  God 
grant  that  no  great  Power  will  ever  want  to 
drag  us,  under  cover  of  this  isolation,  into  com- 
binations contrary  to  our  interests.  What 
would  happen,  for  example,  if  we  were  not  in 
a  position  ourselves  to  ensure  the  defence  of 
Antwerp?  Seeing  that  this  fortress  could  not 
be  protected  by  us,  or  belong  to  any  of  the 
great  Continental  Powers,  would  it  not  inevita- 
bly fall  into  the  hands  of  England,  and  who 
knows  when  and  how  it  would  be  evacuated? 
It  will  suffice,  concluded  the  ex-Minister,  to 


The  Great  Powers  99 

lay  these  questions  before  a  country  resolved 
to  be  the  master  of  its  destiny;  it  will  recognize 
its  duties. 

Such,  reduced  to  fundamental  data,  is  the 
substance  of  the  speech  delivered  at  the  end 
of  the  year  1909  in  the  Belgian  Senate  by  the 
man  who,  at  that  moment,  could  speak  with 
the  greatest  authority  on  the  foreign  policy  of 
the  country.  It  demonstrates  with  dazzling 
clearness  that  after  the  military  conversations 
of  1906,  Belgium  had  not  deviated  by  one  inch 
from  her  traditional  line  of  conduct.  Professor 
Schulte  thought  to  embarrass  the  defenders  of 
Belgian  policy  by  calling  attention  to  this 
declaration :  they  are  infinitely  grateful  to  him, 
on  the  contrary,  for  his  happy  thought.  Indeed 
he  himself  feels  some  scruples  in  terminating 
his  arguments,  but  he  dispels  them  immediately 
by  insinuating  (p.  112)  that  M.  de  Favereau 
left  the  Ministry  to  avoid  liability  for  the 
alleged  policy  of  connivance.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  M.  de  Favereau's  resignation  had  nothing 


loo  Belgium  and 

whatever  to  do  with  the  conversations  of 
1906,  and  nothing  authorised  Professor  Schulte 
to  establish  a  connection  between  the  two 
incidents. 

Be  it  so!  the  indictment  then  says:  let  us  put 
aside  the  conversations  of  1906.  .  But  what  was 
the  attitude  of  the  Belgian  Government  six 
years  later,  in  1912,  after  the  action  taken  by 
another  English  attache,  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Bridges,  to  the  chief  of  the  Belgian  General 
Staff? 

Before  discussing  the  indictment  on  this 
score,  let  us  recall  what  this  proceeding  of  19 12 
was. 

We  must  go  back  to  April,  a  few  months 
after  the  Agadir  crisis,  in  the  course  of  which 
England  had  for  the  first  time  officially  de- 
clared her  solidarity  with  France.  The  Eng- 
lish attache  came  to  see  General  Jungbluth, 
and  said  to  him  (I  reproduce  from  the  White 
Book) : 


The  Grekt  Powers  ioi. 

"England  disposes  of  an  army,  capable  of 
being  sent  on  the  Continent,  composed  of  six 
infantry  divisions  and  eight  cavalry  brigades, 
in  all  a  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  men.  She 
has  also  all  that  is  necessary  for  defending  her 
insular  territory.     Everything  is  ready.'' 

Nothing  in  this  military  information  concerns 
Belgium;  nothing  is  even  new  to  her  Govern- 
ment, for — according  to  the  Belgische  Akten- 
stiicke^  p.  IOI,  102 — the  Belgian  Minister  at 
Berlin  had  written  to  Brussels  four  months 
earlier,  on  the  6th  of  December,  1911:  ''Until 
further  notice,  it  must  be  looked  upon  as  certain 
that  the  project  of  aiding  France  in  a  war  with 
Germany  by  the  landing  of  a  corps  of  a  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  English  has  been  discussed 
in  London.'' 

But  here  is  an  important — and  fresh — piece 
of  information  (I  quote  again  from  the  White 
Book) : 

**The  British  Government,  at  the  time  of  the 
recent  events,  would  have  immediately  landed 


'im  i  y\- . •  ':  i Belgiiim  and 

troops  in  your  territory  even  if  you  had  not 
asked  for  help,*'^ 

The  Belgian  Chief  of  Staff  protests  imme- 
diately: *'  .  .  .  But  our  consent  would  be 
necessary  for  this." 

"I  know/'  replied  the  Attache,  **but  as  you 
would  not  be  in  a  position  to  prevent  the  Ger- 
mans from  entering  your  country,  England 
would  have  disembarked  her  troops  in  any 
case." 

The  Belgian  General's  reply  was  therefore 
immediate:  the  General  was,  indeed,  familiar 
with  the  thesis  which  Belgium  had  always 
maintained,  namely  that  none  of  the  guaran- 
tors could  intervene  without  the  adhesion  of 
Belgium  herself.  I  have  shown  {La  Belgique 
neutre  et  loyale,  p.  55-56),  that  in  international 
law  this  thesis  is  strongly  contested,  not  only 

'  Professor  Schulte  {Von  der  Neutralitdt  Belgiens,  p.  99) 
accuses  me  of  having  made  no  mention  of  this  essential  decla- 
ration. He  is  mistaken;  it  appears  in  my  book,  p.  181: 
"...  Even  if  Belgium  did  not  ask  for  it."  It  would  have 
been  idle  to  reproduce  it  a  second  time  with  the  variation: 
"In  any  case." 


The  Great  Powers  103 

from  the  general  point  of  view  of  principles, 
but  from  the  special  point  of  view  of  Belgium. 
To  the  authorities  whose  opinions  I  then  quoted, 
I  am  desirous  of  adding  the  opinion  of  a  German 
author,  Dr.  juris  Siegfried  Richter,  who  pub- 
lished, before  the  war  as  it  happens,  in  1913, 
an  important  work.  Die  Neutralisation  von 
Staaten,  in  Die  Rechtseinheit,  a  series  of  mono- 
graphs issued  under  the  direction  of  Professors 
Kohler  and  Stier-Somlo — two  colleagues  who 
are  now  unsparing  in  their  strictures  on  my 
country.  Richter  does  not  hesitate  to  declare 
that  it  is  impossible  to  make  the  intervention 
of  a  guarantor  dependent  upon  the  formal  or 
tacit  assent  of  the  State  covered  by  permanent 
neutrality  (p.  220):  according  to  this  point  of 
view,  England's  intentions  were  perfectly  law- 
ful. But  I  will  not  return  to  this  purely  theo- 
retical discussion.  I  am  eager  to  come  back  to 
the  indictment,  which  incriminates  the  attitude 
adopted  by  Belgium  after  the  revelation  of  the 
English  attache. 


104  Belgium  and 

It  is  in  this  connection,  indeed,  that  insistent, 
categorical,  and  maUcious  attacks  are  now 
incessantly  renewed : 

"As  to  the  Belgian  Government,"  says  the 
White  Book  (p.  66)  its  duty  was  not  only  to 
repel  the  English  insinuations  with  the  utmost 
vigour,  but  also  to  inform  the  signatory  Powers 
of  the  Treaty  of  1839,  ^^^  German  Government 
in  particular,  of  England's  repeated  attempts 
to  seduce  Belgium  from  her  neutrality.  The 
Belgian  Government,  far  from  acting  in  this 
way,  thought  itself  authorized  and  called  upon 
lo  take,  in  concert  with  the  English  General  Staffs 
military  measures  of  defence  against  a  supposed 
invasion  contemplated  by  Germany.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  never  made  the  least  attempt  to 
come  to  an  understanding  with  the  German 
Government  or  with  the  responsible  German 
military  authorities,  on  the  subject  of  a  possible 
entry  of  Anglo-French  troops  into  Belgium, 
although  it  was  perfectly  aware  of  this  even- 
tuality,  as  the  discovered   documents  prove. 


The  Great  Powers  105 

The  Belgian  Government  was  firmly  resolved 
then  to  join  Germany's  enemies  and  to  make 
common  cause  with  them." 

Still  more  violent  is  the  propagandist  pam- 
phlet Belgian  Neutrality ^  where  we  read  (p.  8) : 
*'The  Belgian  Government  remained  blind  to 
the  end,  deeply  engaged  as  it  was  in  negotiations 
concerning  common  military  action.  England's 
hand  never  afterwards  relaxed  its  grip  upon 
it."  And  further  ^on  (pp.  9-10):  "The  three 
countries  applied  themselves  to  a  close  co- 
operation. 'Neutral'  Belgium  then  had  be- 
come, in  fact,  an  active  member  of  the 
coalition  against  Germany;  .  .  .  Thanks  to 
English  intrigues,  to  which  Belgium  only  too 
readily  lent  herself,  the  guaranteeing  Treaty 
of  1839  was  so  completely  divested  of  its 
tenor  and  of  its  nature  as  to  become  a  scrap 
of  paper.  .  .  .  With  the  aid  of  Belgium  her- 
self, England  had  undermined  Belgian  neutral- 
ity from  within." 

Finally,  Professor  Schulte  draws  up  a  verita- 


io6  Belgium  and 

ble  indictment  {Von  der  Neutralitat   Belgiens, 
pp.  1 1 5-1 17).     I  underline  two  passages. 

"In  1912/'  he  cries,  ''a  responsible  English 
military  personality  plainly  declares  that  Eng- 
land wotdd  have  disembarked  troops  in  Belgium 
in  any  case.  The  Belgians  show  no  displeasure 
at  this:  their  Chief  of  the  General  Staff  con- 
tinues  to  negotiate  tranquilly  {ihr  Generahtabschef 
verhandelt  ruhig  weiter) ;  the  Government  makes 
no  communication  to  the  other  guaranteeing 
Powers  .  .  .  The  present  governors  of  Bel- 
gitun  had  forgotten  the  words  of  the  founder  of 
the  dynasty:  *To  maintain  our  neutrality  sin- 
cerely, loyally,  and  bravely,  must  be  our  con- 
stant aim.'  The  Belgian  ruling  circles  looked 
upon  this  neutrality  as  non-existent  {hielten 
far  ein  Nichts).  .  .  .  History  will  one  day 
write  in  plain  terms;  Belgium  had  received 
from  Europe  a  solemn  guarantee;  under  this 
guarantee  the  country  prospered  for  eighty- 
three  years  .  .  .  But  Belgium  came  to  look 
upon  her  neutrality  as  a  chain;  the  Government 


The  Great  Powers  107 

knew  that  England  was  soon  going  to  violate 
it,  it  nevertheless  continued  to  negotiate  secretly 
with  her,  and  thus,  so  far  as  Germany  was 
concerned,  it  deprived  the  neutrality  of  Belgium 
of  every  claim  to  existence/' 

To  all  this,  there  is  only  one  reply:  it  is  con- 
trary to  facts:  nothing  will  prevail  against 
these.  This  time  we  have  a  firm  hold  on  the 
Accusation;  we  will  not  relax  that  hold. 

We  take  it  that  the  declaration  of  191 2  is  the 
only  important  point  for  the  moment. 

Now,  our  accusers  have  been  perfectly  well 
aware  since  191 2,  when  the  solitary  interview 
reported  above  took  place,  no  single  meeting 
took  place  between  English  and  Belgian  military 
men. 

It  is  therefore  completely  false  to  say  that 
after  the  declaration  of  19 12,  either  the  Chief 
of  the  Belgian  General  Staff,  or  the  Belgian 
Government  continued  negotiations  with  Eng- 
land, and  that  Belgium  consequently  adhered 
to  the  Entente. 


io8  Belgium  and 

Do  they  wish  to  know  what  the  Belgian 
Government  did  after  the  one  and  only  interview 
of  1912? 

The  Belgian  Government,  far  from  negotiat- 
ing with  England  in  order  to  take  a  place  in 
the  Entente,  informed  the  English  Government 
''oj  the  apprehensions  that  obtained  in  Belgium 
lest  England  should  violate  Belgian  neutrality 
firsts  In  the  interview  which  he  had  on  this 
occasion  with  Sir  Edward  Grey,  the  Belgian 
Minister  in  London,  without  going  into  further 
details,  drew  attention  to  the  fact  that  there 
had  been  some  idea  of  ''England's  disembarking 
troops  jor  the  purpose  of  forestalling  the  possible 
sending  oj  German  troops  through  Belgium  towards 
France,''  and  he  explained  that  it  was  these 
rumours  which  were  causing  apprehensions.  In 
consequence  of  this  action  in  London,  Sir  Edward 
Grey,  wishing  to  put  an  end  to  unfavourable 
interpretations,  wrote  on  the  7th  of  April, 
1913,  a  letter  to  the  English  Minister  at  Brus- 
sels, who  sent  a  copy  of  it  to  the  Belgian  Minis- 


The  Great  Powers  109 

ter  of  Foreign  Affairs;  in  this  letter,  the  head 
of  the  Foreign  Office  declared:  **I  am  stire  that 
this  Government  will  never  be  the  first  to 
violate  the  neutrality  of  Belgium  and  I  do  not 
believe  that  any  English  Government  would 
do  so,  or  that  public  opinion  in  this  country 
would  ever  approve  of  it.  .  .  .  To  be  the 
first  to  violate  the  neutrality  and  to  send  troops 
to  Belgium  would  be  to  give  Germany,  for 
example,  a  justification  for  sending  troops 
into  Belgium.  What  we  desire  in  Belgium's 
case  as  much  as  in  the  case  of  all  the  other 
neutral  countries,  is  that  their  neutrality  should 
be  respected ;  as  long  as  it  remained  un violated 
by  any  other  Power,  we  would  certainly  not 
send  troops  ourselves  upon  their  territory" 
(see  in  the  Grey  Book,  II.,  No.  100,  the  full 
text  of  this  document,  which  was  published 
for  the  first  time  on  the  7th  of  December,  1914, 
by  the  English  press). 

This  is  what  Belgium  did — and  our  accusers 
are  so  well  aware  of  it  that  on  the  12  th  of  Octo- 


no  Belgium  and 

ber  last,  the  Norddeutsche  Allgemeine  Zeitung 
was  still  occupied  with  this  letter  of  Sir  Edward 
Grey's,  in  order  to  point  out  that  it  could  not 
really  be  considered  as  categorical  and  solemn, 
seeing  that — the  reason  is  amusing — the  Minis- 
ter had  used  the  expression  '*I  do  not  believe,'* 
in  referring  to  the  attitude  of  future  EngHsh 
Governments ! 

Now,  what  Belgium  did  in  1913  in  London, 
she  had  done  in  191 1  at  Berlin,  and  this  last 
step  is  of  extreme  importance  to  the  point  of 
view  we  are  now  discussing. 

A  controversy  had  just  been  stirred  up  by 
the  Dutch  scheme  for  the  fortification  of  Flush- 
ing :  various  circumstances  had  again  raised  the 
question  of  Belgian  neutrality  and  of  the  even- 
tual intervention  of  her  guarantors.  The 
Government  seized  the  opportunity.  It  immedi- 
ately suggested  to  Berlin  (Grey  Book,  No.  12) 
the  idea  "that  a  declaration  made  in  the 
German  Parliament  on  the  occasion  of  a  debate 
on  foreign  policy,  would  tend  to  appease  public 


The  Great  Powers  iii 

opinion  and  to  allay  suspicions  which  were  regret- 
table from  the  point  oj  view  of  the  relations  be- 
tween the  two  countries.''  Herr  von  Bethmann- 
HoUweg  replied  that  he  thoroughly  appreciated 
the  sentiments  which  had  inspired  Belgium's  re- 
presentations; he  then  declared  that  Germany 
had  no  intention  of  violating  Belgian  neutrality. 

What  then  was  the  meaning  of  this  action 
on  the  part  of  Belgium,  an  action  without  prece- 
dent in  the  political  history  of  our  country,  if 
not  that  the  Belgian  Government  wished  to 
put  to  the  test~the  hypothesis  of  a  violation  of 
Belgian  neutrality  by  the  German  armies, 
an  hypothesis  which  the  military  conversations 
had  taken  into  account  in  1906,  and  which  was 
justified  by  so  many  indications? 

In  other  words,  just  as  she  asked  England 
straightforwardly  in  1913,  Belgium  asked  Ger- 
many straightforwardly  in  191 1  to  dispel  her 
fears. 

And  Belgium  not  only  spoke  to  London  and 
to  Berlin,  but  in  a  spirit  of  impeccable  correct- 


112  Belgium  and 

ness  she  entered  into  a  diplomatic  conversation 
in  Paris,  the  significant  tenor  of  which  was 
revealed  by  the  second  Grey  Book  (No.  l). 
.  On  the  22d  of  Febraary,  1913,  in  the  course 
of  an  interview  which  the  Belgian  Minister  had 
with  the  General  Director  of  the  Foreign  Affairs 
of  the  Republic,  the  latter  questioned  him  as  to 
the  scope  of  the  projected  military  reform  then 
under  discussion  in  the  Belgian  Parliament. 

In  his  reply  the  Minister  ''pointed  out,  with 
all  necessary  reserve,  that  the  close  relations 
established  somewhat  recently  by  England 
with  certain  Great  Powers  would  no  longer 
place  her  in  the  same  position  as  formerly  to- 
wards Belgium,  although  the  existence  of  a 
free  and  independent  Belgium  continue  to  be 
vital  to  her  policy.  We  desire  to  prevent  Bel- 
gitim,  if  possible,  said  the  Minister,  from  again 
becoming  the  battlefield  of  Europe,  as  she  was 
too  often  in  the  past." 

He  added  that  ''Belgium  meant  to  have  a 
strong  and  important  army,  which  would  en- 


The  Great  Powers  113 

able  her  completely  and  fully  to  do  her  duty, 
and  to  safeguard  her  independence  and  her 
neutrality." 

"I  perfectly  understand,"  replied  the  Bel- 
gian Minister's  interlocutor,  **but  are  not  your 
new  armaments  a  result  of  your  fear  that  this 
neutrality  will  be  violated  by  France?" 

**No,"  restimed  the  Minister,  ''they  are  no 
more  directed  against  France  than  against 
Germany ;  they  are  designed  to  prevent  anybody 
from  entering  our  territory." 

And  he  concluded  thus :  *  'I  repeat,  we  do  not 
trust  to  any  calculation  of  probabilities;  besides, 
what  may  be  true  today  may  no  longer  be  true 
tomorrow,  by  reason  of  new  circtmistances, 
and  our  aim  is  solely  to  prevent  any  violation  of 
our  neutrality,  within  the  limits  of  our  strength,'' 

In  the  course  of  the  interview,  it  was  affirmed 
that  France  would  never  take  the  initiative  in 
violating  Belgian  neutrality;  but  that  if  the 
German  armies  entered  Belgium,  and  if  the 
Belgians  should  not  be  strong  enough  to  repel 


114  Belgium  and 

them,  the  Government  of  the  Republic  would 
consider  itself  justified  in  taking  the  measures 
which  it  should  judge  expedient  for  the  defence 
of  its  own  territory. 

Once  more  we  find  in  the  words  of  the  Bel- 
gian Minister  in  Paris  the  governing  political 
idea  which  had  already  been  expressed  by  the 
ex-Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  M.  de  Favereau, 
in  his  speech  of  1909:  England's  position  in  the 
European  concert  was  henceforth  no  longer 
the  same;  Belgium  thus  found  herself  exposed 
to  the  possibility  of  no  longer  finding  in  this 
Power  the  same  unfettered  benevolence  which 
was  traditional  in  her  policy;  isolation,  threat- 
ened the  country;  it  was  driven  more  and  more 
to  rely  only  upon  itself. 

How  remote — I  note  in  passing — ^how  remote 
are  these  preoccupations  which,  since  the  new 
diplomatic  arrangements  which  had  arisen  in 
Europe  had  inspired  the  whole  of  Belgium's 
policy,  from  the  hypotheses  formulated  by 
Professor  Karl  Rathgen  in  his  article  in  the 


The  Great  Powers  115 

Preussische  Jahrbtlcher:  *' Belgians  auswartige 
Politik  und  der  Kongo."  According  to  him,  it 
was  England — always  England! — who  com- 
pelled Belgium  to  strengthen  her  military 
organization,  and  she  probably  made  her  re- 
cognition of  the  annexation  of  the  Congo  con- 
ditional upon  this  undertaking.  We  see  that 
the  fact  was  very  different. 

I  was  about  to  conclude  by  asking  what  re- 
mains of  the  accusation  launched  against  the 
Belgian  Government  of  having  in  19 12  broken 
her  obligations  towards  the  guarantors  of  the 
country,  and  notably  towards  Germany,  when 
a  significant  fact  came  back  to  my  mind.  It 
dates  from  the  very  day  before  the  sending  of 
the  German  note,  the  2d  of  August.  The 
Treaty  of  Commerce  between  Belgium  and 
Germany  was  to  expire  on  the  31st  December, 
191 7:  now,  the  Department  of  Foreign  Affairs, 
which  controls  the  foreign  commerce  of  a  coun- 
try, had,  in  the  last  days  of  July,  prepared  a 


ii6  Belgium  and 

circular  for  the  Chambers  of  Commerce  and 
industrial  and  commercial  associations,  inviting 
them  to  examine  the  questions  which  might 
present  themselves  on  that  occasion.  This 
circular  was  conceived  in  a  spirit  quite  favour- 
able to  the  maintenance  of  treaty  relations  with 
Germany.  It  was  despatched  at  the  very 
time  when  the  German  troops  were  crossing 
the  frontier.  .  .  .  The  fact  is  especially  char- 
acteristic, if  we  collate  it  with  the  further  fact 
that  Belgium  had  no  treaty  of  commerce  with 
France  or  England. 

The  whole  of  this  series  of  testimonies,  all 
agreeing,  whether  they  come  from  the  Accusa- 
tion or  from  the  Defence,  adnait  of  only  one 
conclusion. 

During  the  troubled  years  which  Europe 
passed  through  from  1905  to  1914  Belgium 
kept  vigilant  guard  over  her  own  interests. 
Steadfast  in  her  attitude  of  sincere  neutraKty, 
she  strove  to  obtain  from  the  three  guarantors 


The  Great  Powers  117 

most  interested  in  her  fate,  assurances  which 
might  strengthen  the  confidence  she  placed  in 
them. 

Far  from  infeoffing  herself,  she  asserted  her 
autonomy. 

Far  from  betraying  her  trust,  she  gave  abun- 
dant proof  of  her  loyalty. 


CHAPTER  III 

''BELGIUM  WAS    NOT    CALLED  .UPON  TO    RESIST, 

FOR     HER     TERRITORY     WAS     NOT 

INVIOLABLE" 

In  the  indictment  brought  against  my  coun- 
try, it  has  been  reserved  for  a  barrister  inhabit- 
ing Brussels,  but  who,  having  been  born  at 
Leipzig,  is  not  of  Belgian  nationality,  to  support 
the  most  specious  part  of  the  accusation.  Great 
efforts  had  been  made  to  show  that  Belgium 
had  herself  violated  her  neutrality;  but  M.  F. 
Norden  has  undertaken  to  prove  that  Belgium 
had  not  even  a  right  in  law  to  claim  that  her 
frontiers  should  be  respected,  seeing  that — 
according  to  him — the  inviolability  of  her  terri- 
tory had  never  been  guaranteed.     To  tell  the 

truth,  M.  Norden  was  not  the  first  to  formulate 
Ii8 


Belgium  and  the  Great  Powers  119 

this  hypothesis  after  the  outbreak  of  the  war: 
in  the  number  for  February,  1915,  of  the 
Deutsche  Review^  the  Reichsgerichtsraty  Witt- 
maack  had  akeady  set  forth  the  main  lines  of 
the  thesis,  and  Professor  Schulte  has  said  a  few- 
words  about  it  in  his  pamphlet  (pp.  66-68)  re- 
ferring to  a  divergence  of  interpretation  on  the 
part  of  the  Belgian  jurists  Nys  and  Descamps. 

In  order  to  discuss  this  thesis,  which  is  now 
the  subject  of  an  entire  pamphlet  (F.  Norden, 
Neutral  Belgium  and  Germany,  Brussels,  Richard 
Press,  19 1 5),  I  propose,  first  of  all,  to  reduce  it 
to  its  essential  features. 

Belgium,  we  are  told,  was  mistaken  in  re- 
garding herself  as  obliged,  by  the  terms  of  the 
treaties,  to  oppose  the  passage  of  the  German 
armies  through  her  territory.  Her  error  was 
derived  from  an  unfounded  interpretation  of 
the  clause  referring  to  the  neutrality  of  the 
country.  Article  7  of  the  treaty  concluded  on 
the  19th  of  April,  1839,  between  Belgium  and 
the  Netherlands  and  placed  the  same  day  under 


120  Belgium  and 

the  guarantee  of  Austria,  France,  Great  Britain, 
and  Russia,  declares,  indeed,  that  **  Belgium 
shall  form  an  independent  and  perpetually- 
neutral  State.'*  This  text,  which  reproduces  a 
convention  of  the  15th  of  November,  1831, 
makes  no  mention  of  the  inviolability  of  the 
territory.  Now  the  omission  of  this  comple- 
mentary guarantee  was,  it  seems,  intentional. 
A  previous  version  (text  of  the  26th  of  June, 
1 831),  known  under  the  name  of  the  Treaty  of 
the  Eighteen  Articles,  specified  clearly  that 
"the  five  Powers  guaranteed  the  perpetual 
neutrality,  as  well  as  the  integrity  and  the 
inviolability  of  the  territory."  The  Powers, 
according  to  the  theory  which  we  are  quoting, 
deliberately  reduced  the  extent  of  their  engage- 
ments, and  granted  Belgium  a  precarious  guaran- 
tee, authorizing  passage  through  her  territory, 
and  not  laying  upon  the  new  State  any  obliga- 
tion to  oppose  such  passage  in  the  interests  of 
the  other  contracting  Powers. 

Obviously  this  thesis  has  a  purely  theoretic 


The  Great  Powers  121 

importance,  for  Germany  has  never  thought  of 
invoking  it:  as  the  Berne  Tageblatt  (19 15,  No. 
464)  judiciously  pointed  out,  the  passage 
through  Belgium,  according  to  the  terms  of  the 
Chancellor's  declaration,  constituted  dn  Un- 
recht,  a  violation  of  law,  and  not  the  fulfilment 
of  a  stipulated  obligation. 

But  since  the  Accusation  now  invokes  this 
tardy  justification,  we  must  perforce  make  a 
detailed  examination  of  it.  In  this  examination, 
I  will  for  the  moment  set  aside  the  actual  ques- 
tion of  the  change  in  the  wording  of  the  di- 
plomatic Act  which  sanctioned  the  existence  of 
Belgium,  and  I  will  first  of  all  enquire  whether, 
in  law  as  in  fact,  the  neutralization  of  the  coun- 
try was  compatible  with  a  right  of  way  estab- 
lished for  the  benefit  of  one  of  the  Powers. 

What,  in  fact,  was  the  real  meaning  of  Bel- 
gian neutrality  ?  How  must  we  represent  to  our- 
selves its  signification,  its  extent,  and  its  limits? 

It  would  be  futile  to  have  recourse  to  subtle 


122  Belgium  and 

doctrinal  exegeses  in  order  to  reply  to  these 
questions :  the  guarantees  given  to  Belgium  are 
defined  by  the  circumstances  which  gave  rise 
to  them;  they  assume  their  full  value  from  the 
experiences  which  have  consolidated  them.  It 
will  be  well,  therefore,  to  go  back  to  historical 
sources,  and  discover  what  were  the  intentions 
of  the  Powers  at  the  time  when  they  proclaimed 
the  neutrality  of  Belgium,  to  what  conditions 
of  law  and  of  fact  this  neutralization  answered, 
and  what  lessons  were  taught  by  the  events 
which  inaugurated  the  new  regime. 

Let  us  go  back  to  the  foundation  of  Belgium 
as  a  State. 

The  Conference  of  London  had  just  come  to 
an  agreement  upon  the  proclamation  of  the 
independence  of  the  country  (Protocol  of  the 
20th  of  December,  1830)  But  at  the  very  time 
when  it  thus  recognized  the  results  of  the  Belgian 
Revolution,  it  declared  solemnly  that  it  had 
no  intention  of  confining  itself  to  this  recogni- 
tion: the  separation  of  Belgium  from  Holland 


The  Great  Powers  123 

tore  a  political  system  to  pieces,  to  quote  the 
very  words  of  the  plenipotentiaries;  I  mean 
the  system  established  by  the  treaties  of  1814 
and  of  1815. 

*'In  forming,''  the  plenipotentiaries  say,  **the 
union  of  Belgium  and  of  Holland  by  the  treaties 
in  question,  the  signatory  Powers  of  the  said 
treaties  had  aimed  at  establishing  a  just  equi- 
librium in  Europe  and  ensuring  the  preservation 
of  general  peace. 

"The  events  of  the  last  four  months  have 
unfortunately  proved  that  that  perfect  and 
complete  amalgamation  which  the  Powers 
desired  to  effect  between  these  two  countries, 
had  not  been  realized,  and  that  it  would  be 
henceforth  impossible  to  bring  it  about;  that 
the  very  object  therefore  of  the  union  of  Bel- 
gium with  Holland  no  longer  exists,  and  that 
from  this  moment  it  is  essential  to  have  recourse 
to  new  arrangements  in  order  to  carry  out  the 
intentions  for  the  execution  of  which  the  union 
was  to  serve  as  a  means. 


124  Belgium  and 

**  United  to  Holland,  and  forming  an  integral 
part  of  the  Kingdom  of  the  Netherlands,  Bel- 
gium had  to  fulfil  her  share  of  the  European 
duties  of  this  kingdom,  and  of  the  obligations 
which  had  been  contracted,  by  treaties,  toward 
the  other  Powers.  Her  separation  from  Hol- 
land cannot  liberate  her  from  that  share  of  these 
duties  and  of  these  obligations. 

'*The  Conference  will  consequently  occupy 
itself  with  discussing  and  concerting  the  new 
arrangements  best  adapted  to  combine  the  future 
independence  of  Belgium  with  the  stipulations 
of  treaties,  with  the  interests  and  security  of 
the  other  Powers,  and  with  the  maintenance  of 
the  balance  of  power  in  Europe.'' 
.  But,  as  we  know,  the ' '  stipulations  of  treaties, " 
the  'interests  and  security  of  the  Powers,'*  the 
"maintenance  of  the  balance  of  power  in 
Europe"  here  appear  as  diplomatic  formulae, 
covering  an  interplay  of  influences,  resistances, 
and  greeds.  France,  suspected  by  the  other 
four  Powers,  had  to  be  kept  within  her  fron- 


The  Great  Powers  125 

tiers;  the  btdwark  constructed  against  her  in 
the  treaties  of  18 14  and  18 15,  by  the  union  of 
Belgium  with  Holland  had  just  been  demolished 
by  the  separation  of  the  two  countries:  this 
bulwark  had  to  be  replaced.  On  the  other 
hand,  France  herself,  desirous  of  casting  off  all 
the  fetters  which  Europe  had  placed  upon  her, 
was  favourably  inclined  to  the  creation  upon  her 
northern  frontier  of  a  State  '*  entrusted  to  a 
sovereign  who  should  be  a  convenient  neighbour 
and  might  become  a  faithful  ally** — to  quote 
Talleyrand's  expressions  {MSmoireSy  Broglie 
edition,  vol.  iii.,  p.  421),  and  at  no  price 
would  she  consent  to  combinations  which  would 
have  given  England  any  foothold  whatever 
on  the  Continent  (id,,  p.  410).  Finally  Eng- 
land was  by  no  means  opposed  to  the  consti- 
tution of  a  strong  State,  which  should  be 
distinct  from  Holland,  especially  as,  since 
the  beginning  of  the  negotiations,  she  had 
perceived  the  possibility  of  entrusting  the 
destinies  of  this  new   State    to    a   prince   in 


126  Belgium  and 

whom  she  had  every  confidence,  Leopold  of 
Saxe-Coburg. 

The  ''new  arrangements''  suitable  for  com- 
bining these  various  political  exigencies  with 
the  independence  of  Belgium  as  now  declared 
were  not  easy  to  discover:  all  the  measures 
discussed  ''were,  Talleyrand  relates,  only  tem- 
porary palliatives,  which  did  not  deliver  us 
from  permanent  dangers.  I  had,  he  explains, 
meditated  for  several  days  upon  a  solution 
which  I  looked  upon  as  decisive  .  .  .  this  was 
a  declaration,  by  the  Powers,  of  the  neutrality 
of  Belgium.  I  submitted  it  to  the  Conference 
at  its  sitting  of  the  20th  of  January,  183 1,  where 
I  had  the  satisfaction  of  causing  it  to  be  adopted 
and  recorded  in  the  protocol  of  that  day" 
(vol.  iv.,  p.  17). 

The  protocol  of  which  Talleyrand  speaks  is 
explicit : 

"The  plenipotentiaries  are  unanimously  of 
opinion  that  the  great  Powers  owe  to  their 
clearly  defined  interests,  to  their  union,  to  the 


The  Great  Powers  127 

tranquillity  of  Europe,  and  to  the  accomplish- 
ment of  the  views  recorded  in  their  protocol 
of  the  20th  of  December,  a  solemn  manifesta- 
tion, a  striking  proof  of  their  firm  determination 
to  seek  no  increase  of  territory,  no  exclusive  influ- 
ence, no  isolated  advantage,  in  the  arrangements 
relative  to  Belgium,  as  in  all  the  circumstances 
which  may  still  arise,  and  to  give  this  coimtry 
itself  as  well  as  all  the  States  which  surround  it, 
the  best  guarantees  of  peace  and  security.  In 
pursuance  of  these  principles,  and  with  these 
salutary  intentions,  the  plenipotentiaries  have 
resolved,  etc.  .  .  .*' 

The  Conference  perceived  so  clearly  the 
necessity  of  welding  the  new  arrangement,  which 
was  essentially  founded  upon  the  double  basis 
of  the  independence  and  the  neutrality  of  the 
new  State,  into  the  general  political  system  of 
Europe,  that  it  reiterated  the  declaration  of  its 
views  in  categorical  terms,  on  the  19th  Feb- 
ruary, 1 831: 

*'The  union  of  Belgium  with  Holland  was 


128  Belgium  and 

shattered.  It  is  not  within  the  province  of  the 
Powers  to  judge  of  the  causes  which  had  just 
broken  the  ties  they  had  formed.  But  when 
they  saw  those  ties  broken,  it  still  behoved  them 
to  attain  the  object  which  they  had  proposed 
to  themselves  in  forming  these.  It  was  their 
duty  to  ensure,  by  means  of  new  combinations, 
that  European  tranquillity,  one  of  the  bases  of 
which  had  been  the  union  of  Belgium  with 
Holland.  The  Powers  were  imperiously  called 
upon  to  do  so.  They  had  the  right,  and  events 
imposed  upon  them  the  duty,  of  preventing  the 
Belgian  provinces^  now  independent^  from  en- 
dangering the  general  security  and  the  balance 
of  power  in  Europe.  .  .  . 

''Every  nation  has  its  private  rights,  but 
Europe  also  has  its  right;  social  order  has  given 
it  this  right. 

"The  treaties  which  govern  Europe,  Belgium 
found  already  made  and  in  force  when  she 
became  independent;  she  had  therefore  to  respect 
them,  and  not  to  infringe  them.     By  respecting 


The  Great  Powers  129 

them,  she  identified  herself  with  the  interests 
and  the  peace  of  the  great  community  of  Euro- 
pean States;  by  infringing  them,  she  might 
have  brought  about  confusion  and  war.  The 
Powers  alone  could  avert  this  calamity,  and 
since  they  could  do  so,  they  were  bound  to  do  so; 
they  were  bound  to  impose  the  salutary  maxim 
that  the  events  which  give  birth  to  a  new  State  in 
Europe  do  not  give  it  the  right  to  alter  the  general 
system  into  which  it  enters,  any  more  than  the 
changes  which  arise  in  the  condition  of  an 
ancient  State  justify  it  in  believing  itself  re- 
leased from  its  previous  engagements." 

This  body  of  acts  and  declarations  gives  its 
full  significance  to  Belgium's  neutrality. 

Belgiimi's  neutrality  was  a  rampart  raised 
against  conflicting  ambitions;  it  was  conceived, 
recognized,  and  guaranteed  only  for  the  purpose 
of  preventing  one  or  the  other  of  the  Powers 
"from  seeking  in  these  arrangements,  as  in  any 
circtimstances  which  may  still  arise,  any  ex- 
clusive influence,  or  any  isolated  advantage.  *' 


130  Belgium  and 

Is  it  not  patent,  therefore,  that  it  would 
become  a  thing  incomprehensible,  indefensible, 
and  incoherent,  if  it  could  tolerate  a  privilege 
of  free  passage  through  the  neutralized  territory 
in  favour  of  any  one  of  the  guaranteeing  Powers  ? 

It  is  a  special  neutrality,  asserts  M.  Norden 
(p-  38),  a  neutrality  which  is  hot  impenetrable, 
according  to  the  usual  and  vulgar  meaning  of 
the  word;  it  is,  in  a  word,  a  pervious  neutrality 

(p.  19). 

Not  at  all:  Belgian  neutrality  was,  on  the 
contrary,  in  the  minds  of  those  who  formulated 
it,  so  perfectly  watertight  that  Talleyrand  was 
able  to  write,  in  forwarding  the  decisive  protocol 
of  the  20th  of  January,  1831,  to  Paris  (see 
above,  p.  126):  ''The  recognized  neutrality  of 
Belgium  places  this  country  henceforth  in  the 
same  position  as  Switzerland'*  (vol.  iv.,  p.  19). 
And  elsewhere  he  defines  what  this  assimilation 
means  to  France:  ''The  ensured  neutrality  of 
Belgium  gives  us  from  Dunkirk  to  Luxemburg, 
a  defence  equal  to  that  which  we  have  from  Bale 


The  Great  Powers  131 

to  Chamb6ry,  thanks  to  the  neutrality  of 
Switzerland"  {id.,  p.  38).  Elsewhere,  again, 
he  speaks  still  more  plainly:  *'The  perpetual 
neutrality  of  Switzerland  is  especially  favour- 
able to  France,  which,  surrounded  by  fortresses 
upon  all  the  other  parts  of  her  frontiers,  is 
unprovided  with  any  upon  the  frontier  border- 
ing on  Switzerland.  The  neutrality  of  this 
country  therefore  gives  her  an  impregnable  bul- 
wark upon  the  only  point  where  she  is  weak  and 
unarmed"  (vol.  ii.,  p.  231). 

Thus,  whether  it  be  a  question  of  Belgium  or 
of  Switzerland,  permanent  neutrality  involves 
ipso  facto  inviolability  of  territory. 

This  stands  to  reason :  if  the  exclusive  object 
of  the  neutralization  agreement  had  not  been 
to  make  all  the  frontiers  of  Belgium  impassable, 
what  purpose  could  it  possibly  have  served? 

M.  Norden  himself  doubtless  perceives  the 
weakness  of  his  argument,  for  he  asks  himself 
how  a  neutrality  which  should  not  imply  inviol- 
ability could  be  violated  at  all  ?    And  he  replies : 


132  Belgium  and 

''It  could  evidently  only  be  by  an  armed  aggres- 
sion, having  for  object  to  seize  all  or  part  of  the 
territory  or  provinces  of  the  neutral  State'*  (p. 
37).  We  divine  the  conclusion  to  which  this 
reasoning  leads:  as,  in  August,  1914,  Germany 
had  no  aggressive  intentions,  and  merely  claimed 
right  of  passage,  she  did  not  even  violate  the 
pervious  neutrality  which,  according  to  M. 
Norden,  the  Powers  had  meant  to  grant  Belgium 
{id,). 

Does  Mr.  Norden  think  that  in  war  words 
lose  their  meaning?  It  is  not  her  neutrality 
which  would  be  violated  by  ''an  armed  aggres- 
sion against  Belgium,''  but  her  independence y 
guaranteed  by  the  treaty  of  1839  fo^  ^he  same 
purpose.  The  independence  of  a  country  is 
one  thing;  its  neutrality  is  another,  and  if 
M.  Norden  ends  by  a  simple  substitution  of 
one  conception  for  the  other,  it  is  because 
he  has,  previously  stripped  the  second  of  all 
meaning,  and  reduced  it  to  a  mere  verbal 
expression. 


The  Great  Powers  133 

Perhaps  you  are  right,  M.  Norden  will  reply: 
it  is  possible  that  in  law  as  in  fact,  the  neutral- 
ization of  Belgium  involved  the  inviolability 
of  her  frontiers;  we  know,  however,  that  the 
final  treaty  differs  from  the  provisional  treaties, 
precisely  by  the  omission  of  the  guarantee  of 
inviolability;  hence,  in  fact  at  least,  the  inten- 
tions of  the  Powers  must  have  been  modified. 

I  reply: 

This  is  inaccurate  precisely  as  regards  the 
fact,  for  shortly  after  the  Powers  had  adopted 
the  new  wording,  various  incidents  arose  which 
gave  them  an  opportunity  of  formulating  their 
views  very  clearly. 

In  December,  1831,  a  subsidiary  convention, 
of  which  I  shall  have  to  speak  at  greater  length 
further  on,  called  forth  very  strong  protests 
from  the  French  Government.  Now,  in  this 
connection,  M.  Casimir-Perier,  alluding  to  a 
hypothetical  crossing  of  the  Belgian  frontier 
by  any  one  of  the  Powers,  expressed  himself 
as  follows:  "The  guarantee  given  by  the  five 


134  Belgium  and 

Powers  impKes  the  union  of  four  against  the 
fifth  which  should  attempt  to  violate  Belgian 
independence  or  neutrality."  At  the  moment 
when  M.  Casimir-Perier  spoke  thus,  France  was 
confronted  no  longer  with  the  primitive  text 
of  the  26th  of  June,  1831,  but  with  the  modified 
text,  which  had  been  approved  on  the  15th  of 
November,  1831;  she  none  the  less  declared 
that  Belgian  neutrality  had,  and  could  have, 
no  other  meaning  than  that  imposed  by  the 
nature  of  things. 

Another  event — also  subsequent  to  the  Treaty 
of  the  15th  of  November — showed  even  more 
clearly  that  the  neutrality  of  Belgium  always 
implied,  in  the  intentions  of  the  signatory 
Powers,  the  inviolability  of  her  territory;  the 
facts  were  recalled  in  1901  in  the  Belgian  Senate 
by  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs  (Session  of 
the  6th  of  June) : 

"After  the  Treaty  of  the  15th  of  November, 
1 83 1,''  said  the  Minister,  "  Belgium  was  obliged 
to  have  recourse  to  the  guarantee  which  had 


The  Great  Powers  135 

been  given  her.  At  that  moment,  a  part  of 
the  Belgian  territory  was  still  occupied  by  the 
armies  of  the  Netherlands,  and  the  citadel  of 
Antwerp,  notably,  was  in  their  hands.  What 
did  Belgiimi  do?  She  appealed  to  the  gimrantee 
contained  in  article  25  of  the  Treaty  of  the  15  th 
of  November y  in  order  to  obtain  the  military 
aid  of  the  Powers.  France  and  England  de- 
clared themselves  ready  to  help  her,  and  the 
intervention  of  the  foreign  armies  ensured 
respect  for  the  integrity  of  the  territory ^  as  far  as 
Antwerp  was  concerned." 

This  intervention  of  the  guaranteeing  Powers 
on  the  morrow  of  the  treaty  of  November,  1831, 
was,  after  all,  merely  a  repetition  under  identical 
conditions,  of  a  first  intervention  which  took 
place  between  the  treaty  of  June  and  that  of  No- 
vember. The  Netherlands  having  invaded  Bel- 
gium, the  London  Conference  had  approved  the 
use  of  a  French  army  for  a  limited  time,  and  had 
decided  that  an  English  naval  squadron  should 
repel  the  attacks  of  the  Dutch  along  the  coast. 


136  Belgium  and 

After  November,  1831,  as  before  this  date, 
when  the  new  text  had  been  accepted,  no  less 
than  when  the  original  text  was  in  force,  the 
Powers  were,  we  see,  fully  agreed  to  withstand 
the  violation  of  Belgian  territory  by  armed 
intervention.  In  all  the  circumstances  in  which 
subsequently  to  the  modification  of  the  text, 
the  Powers  had  to  make  manifest  by  deeds  the 
interpretation  they  themselves  gave  to  their 
solemn  decision,  they  bore  witness  to  the  fact 
that  the  new  text  in  no  way  altered  the  nature 
of  their  obligations,  and  that  in  proclaiming 
the  neutrality  of  Belgium,  they  had  expressly 
meant  to  keep  her  frontiers  immune  from 
invasion. 

But  M.  Norden  will  again  insist,  why  in  that 
case  did  the  Treaty  of  November  suppress  the 
reference  to  territorial  inviolability?  M.  Nor- 
den offers  an  explanation:  Between  June  and 
November,  1831,  it  happened,  he  says  (p.  25), 
that  the  Dutch  broke  the  armistice  and  invaded 


The  Great  Powers  137 

Belgium,  and  that  the  Belgians  were  not  able 
to  resist  them;  the  Powers,  seeing  that  the 
Belgian  army  was  too  weak,  accordingly  came 
to  the  conclusion  that,  if  France  one  day  should 
in  her  turn  invade  Belgium,  the  Belgians  would 
not  be  able  to  offer  a  serious  resistance,  and 
that,  therefore,  it  was  necessary  to  provide  for 
such  resistance  in  an  effective  manner;  they 
provided  for  it,  according  to  M.  Norden,  by 
deciding  to  revive  for  the  benefit  of  Belgium 
an  ancient  stipulation  relative  to  the  occupa- 
tion of  certain  fortresses  situated  upon  her 
territory;  as  this  stipulation  entailed  the  intro- 
duction by  Prussia  and  England  of  troops  of 
occupation,  the  Powers,  M.  Norden  concludes, 
suppressed  the  clause  relative  to  inviolability 
in  the  treaty. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  there  is  a  certain 
attractive  plausibility  about  this  explanation. 
But  a  romance  may  also  be  plausible,  and, 
in  the  present  case,  we  find  ourselves  in  the 
presence  of  a  romance.     In  order  to  prove  this, 


138  Belgium  and 

I  shall  be  obliged,  at  the  risk  of  protracting  my 
reply,  to  deal  in  detail  with  certain  historical 
facts. 

We  must  remember  that  in  1814-1815  the 
great  Powers,  in  their  anxiety  to  raise  an  effect- 
ive barrier  against  France,  had  decided  to 
construct  or  to  maintain  to  the  south  of  the 
Netherlands — that  is  to  say,  upon  the  territory 
of  the  future  Belgium,  a  line  of  thirteen  fort- 
resses. In  1818,  England,  Austria,  Prussia,  and 
Russia  had  determined  the  eventual  utiliza- 
tion of  three  fortresses  by  a  protocol  signed  at 
Aix-la-Chapelle. 

**The  barrier  system  was  re-established,'* 
says  R.  DoUot  in  his  excellent  historical  account 
of  The  Origins  of  the  Neutrality  of  Belgium  and 
the  Barrier  System  (p.  533).  But  the  existence 
of  this  line  of  fortresses  was  looked  upon  by 
France  as  a  permanent  humiKation,  and  Talley- 
rand, when  he  advocated  the  neutralization  of 
Belgium  at  the  Conference  of  London,  was 
firmly    resolved    to   pull    down    this    material 


The  Great  Powers  139 

rampart,  and  replace  it  by  a  conventional 
barrier.  He  had  made  no  secret  of  this  in  his 
correspondence  with  his  government ;  he  wrote 
in  reference  to  the  protocol  of  January,  1831, 
in  which  he  had  succeeded  in  having  the  neutral- 
ization of  Belgium  inserted,  as  I  have  explained 
above  (p.  126) :  **The  thirteen  fortresses  of  Bel- 
gium by  means  of  which  our  northern  frontier 
was  continually  threatened,  fall,  so  to  speak, 
in  consequence  of  this  resolution,  and  we  are 
henceforth  freed  from  irksome  trammels** 
(MetnoireSy  vol.  iv.,  p.  19). 

This  opinion  of  Talleyrand's  was,  moreover, 
partially  shared  at  least  by  the  four  Powers 
interested  in  the  establishment  of  the  barrier 
of  fortresses,  Austria,  Great  Britain,  Prussia, 
and  Russia:  on  the  17th  of  April,  1831,  they 
declared,  by  a  special  protocol,  that  *'the  fort- 
resses were  too  numerous  to  be  effectually 
defended,  and  that  a  certain  nimiber  of  these 
fortresses,  raised  under  different  circimistances, 
might  be  demolished.** 


140  Belgium  and 

Let  us  make  careful  note  of  the  terms  and 
also  of  the  date  of  this  protocol;  the  17th  of 
April,  1 83 1 — that  is  to  say,  before  the  original 
treaty  of  June.  From  this  moment,  at  a  time 
when  the  change  in  the  text  which  disturbs 
M.  Norden  so  much  was  not  yet  introduced; 
when  the  Belgian  army  had  not  yet  suffered 
the  reverses  which,  according  to  M.  Norden 
would  have  been  necessary  to  call  the  attention 
of  the  plenipotentiaries  to  the  fact  that  the 
army  of  a  country  of  four  million  inhabitants 
would  never  be  in  a  position  to  offer  a  serious 
resistance  to  the  armies  of  France ;  while  nothing 
yet  existed  diplomatically  beyond  the  very 
clear  declarations  of  the  Conference  in  favour 
of  the  complete  neutrality  of  Belgium — what 
did  the  four  interested  Powers  decree?  The 
destruction  of  all  the  fortresses,  as  France  would 
have  wished?  No,  but  simply  that  it  would  be 
opportune  to  do  away  with  a  certain  number 
of  them. 

It  is,   therefore,   obvious  that  the  idea  of 


The  Great  Powers  141 

maintaining  a  part  of  the  barrier  of  18 15  in 
Belgium  is  neither  closely  nor  remotely  con- 
nected with  the  revision  of  the  treaty  of  June. 
If  we  now  recall  (see  pp.  122  and  127)  the 
repeated  and  emphatic  declarations  by  which 
the  Conference,  in  its  protocols  of  the  20th  of 
December,  1830,  and  of  the  19th  of  February, 
1 83 1,  affirmed  in  vindication  of  the  rights  of 
Europe,  the  absolute  necessity  laid  upon  Bel- 
gium, henceforth  independent,  to  fulfil  her 
share  of  the  duties  and  obligations  which  her 
previous  imion  with  the  Netherlands  had  made 
her  contract,  we  can  easily  divine  the  attitude 
adopted  by  the  four  Powers  with  regard  to 
Belgium.  A  certain  number  of  the  fortresses 
were  to  be  maintained;  in  connection  with 
these  fortresses,  the  Netherlands  had  been 
responsible  for  certain  charges  determined  by 
the  protocol  of  Aix-la-Chapelle:  henceforth, 
Belgium  would  be  substituted  for  the  Nether- 
lands in  the  relations  with  the  four  Powers  as 
to  the  said  fortresses. 


142  Belgium  and 

This  is  exactly  what  took  place.  Negotia- 
tions ensued;  Belgium  and  France  came  to  an 
agreement  to  demolish  Charleroi,  Mons,  Tour- 
nai,  Ath,  and  Menin.  In  the  interval,  Holland 
had  broken  the  armistice,  France  had  inter- 
vened, the  whole  laboriously  constructed  edifice 
was  threatened;  latent  jealousies  and  ambitions 
revived:  *'The  day  our  troops  crossed  the  fron- 
tier,*' wrote  Talleyrand  on  the  17th  of  August, 
*'that  very  day  a  reaction  began  in  the  English 
mind,  of  which  the  Times  shows  striking  symp- 
toms. This  reaction  has  visibly  spread;  it 
threatens  the  present  Cabinet  essentially;  it  is 
becoming  national''  {Memoir es,  tome  iv.,  p.  270). 

Belgium^  on  her  side,  was  anxious;  she  sent  a 
special  plenipotentiary,  General  Count  Gobelet 
d'Alviella  to  London;  her  problem  was  to 
prevent  the  charges  which  she  was  about  to 
take  over  from  the  Netherlands  in  connection 
with  the  fortresses  from  being  incompatible 
with  the  independence  and  the  neutrality  of 
the  country    (see   Gobelet,   Des  cinq  grandes 


The  Great  Powers  143 

Puissances  de  V Europe  dans  leurs  rapports  poli- 
tiques  et  militaires  avec  la  Belgique).  In  the 
course  of  the  London  negotiations,  modifica- 
tions were  made  in  the  Franco-Belgian  project; 
notably,  Philippeville  and  Marienbonrg  were 
substituted  for  Charleroi  and  Toumai  as  fort- 
resses to  be  dismantled. 

France  became  angry,  her  Government  was 
much  incensed  by  the  thought  which  inspired 
the  other  four  Courts;  any  appearance  of  a 
restoration  of  the  defensive  system  of  18 15 
aroused  great  irritation  on  her  part.  King 
Louis-Philippe  wrote  to  Talleyrand  that  he 
would  never  have  accepted  the  perpetual  neu- 
trality of  Belgium,  if  he  had  not  thought  that 
the  fortresses  raised  in  order  to  threaten  France 
would  be  demolished  {Memoires,  vol.  iv.,  p.  364). 

Finally,  a  solution  was  achieved.  On  the 
14th  of  December,  1831,  a  special  agreement, 
called  **the  Fortresses  Convention**  was  signed, 
designating  the  fortresses  to  be  dismantled 
and  to  be  maintained;  but  fearing  lest  France^s 


144  Belgium  and 

vehement  opposition  should  compromise  the 
success  of  these  laborious  negotiations,  the 
plenipotentiaries  of  the  four  Powers  other  than 
France  did  not  insert  in  the  Convention  the 
article  which  might  have  aroused  anger,  and 
they  made  it  the  object  of  a  secret  clause, — to 
which  Belgium  perforce  adhered,  since  she  was 
substituted  for  the  Netherlands. 

It  is  this  secret  clause,  the  existence  of  which 
was  disclosed  in  1864,  which  is  for  M.  Norden 
the  nucleus  of  the  romance  he  has  constructed; 
here,  we  find,  he  claims  sanction  for  the  obliga- 
tion of  free  passage  imposed  on  Belgium.  Now 
if  we  consult  the  text  we  perceive  that  it  de- 
monstrates the  exact  contrary :  the  secret  clause 
liberates  Belgium  from  every  obligation  incom- 
patible with  her  neutrality.  M.  Norden  re- 
frains from  giving  this  text:  I  reproduce  it 
below,  placing  opposite  it  the  text  of  the  pro- 
tocol of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  which  specified  the 
charges  imposed  on  the  Netherlands,  and 
underlining  its  essential  passages. 


The  Great  Powers 


145 


SECRET  CLAUSE 
*'It  is  well  under- 
stood that  H.  M.  the 
King  of  the  Belgians 
succeeds  to  all  the 
rights  which  H.  M. 
the  King  of  the  Nether- 
lands exercised  over 
the  fortresses  raised, 
repaired,  or  extended 
in  Belgium  wholly  or  in 
part  at  the  expense  of 
the  Courts  of  Austria, 
Prussia,  and  Russia, 
which  must  be  main- 
tained in  virtue  of  the 
patent  clause  of  this 
day.  It  is  likewise  un- 
derstood that  with  re- 
gard to  these  fortresses 
H.  M.  the  King  of  the 
Belgians  is  placed  in 


PROTOCOL    OF    AIX-LA- 
CHAPELLE 

**The  plenipoten- 
tiaries then  discussed 
the  means  of  furnish- 
ing these  fortresses 
with  the  necessary 
garrisons,  in  the  event 
of  war  taking  place 
and  of  the  war  extend- 
ing into  the  Nether- 
lands and,  seeing  that 
the  military  establish- 
ments of  this  kingdom 
were  never  formed  for 
the  exclusive  defence 
of  a  country  whose 
defence  concerns  all 
the  Powers  to  so  great 
a  degree,  it  has  been 
agreed  to  recommend 
to    His    Majesty    the 


146 


Belgium  and 


the  position  in  which 
the  King  of  the  Nether- 
lands was  towards  the 
four  above  named 
Courts,  save  for  the 
obligations  which  the 
perpetual  neutrality  of 
Belgium  will  impose 
upon  H.  M.  the  King 
of  the  Belgians  and 
upon  the  four  Courts 
themselves. 

Consequently  in 
case  the  security  of 
the  fortresses  in  ques- 
tion should  unfortu- 
nately be  compromised, 
H.  M.  the  King  of  the 
Belgians  would  take^  in 
concert  with  the  Courts 
of  Austria,  Great  Brit- 
ain, Prussia,  and  Rus- 


King  of  the  Nether- 
lands the  casus  foederis 
having  been  declared, 
to  cause  the  fortresses 
of  Ostend,  Nieuport, 
Ypres,  and  those  situ- 
ated upon  the  Scheldt 
with  the  exception  of 
the  citadel  of  Tournai 
and  the  fortified  city 
of  Antwerp,  to  be  oc- 
cupied by  the  troops 
of  His  Britannic  Ma- 
jesty, and  the  citadels 
of  Huy,  Namur,  and 
Dinant,  as  well  as  the 
fortified  towns  of  Char- 
1  e  r  o  i,  Marienbourg, 
and  Philippeville  by 
the  troops  of  His  Prus- 
sian Majesty." 


The  Great  Powers  147 

sia,  all  the  measures 
required  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  his  fortresses, 
always  under  the  re- 
serve of  the  neutrality 
of  Belgium*' 

The  differences  are  at  once  apparent. 

Henceforth,  among  the  obligations  of  the 
Netherlands  which  will  devolve  on  Belgium, 
only  such  as  are  compatible  with  Belgian  neu- 
trality are  to  come  in  question;  consequently, 
the  idea  of  having  the  strongholds  occupied  by 
Prussia  and  England  is  explicitly  given  up  and 
nothing  more  is  said  than  that  the  King  of  the 
Belgians  "will  take  in  concert  with  the  four 
Powers  all  the  measures  required  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  fortresses'*  .  .  .  and  that  again, 
not  in  the  event  of  a  common  war  against 
France  {casus  foederis) ,  but  in  case  '*the  security 
of  the  fortresses  should  unfortunately  be  com- 
promised.'* I  may  note  the  characteristic 
fact,  that  at  the  moment  of  signing  on  behalf 


148  Belgium  and 

of  Belgium,  General  Gobelet  addressed  to  the 
four  plenipotentiaries  a  memorandum  which 
made  these  points  clear;  the  plenipotentiaries 
acknowledged  the  receipt  of  it  in  a  special 
protocol. 

To  sum  up :  It  was  not  after  the  invasion  of 
Belgium  by  Holland  that  the  question  of  the 
fortresses  was  raised ;  it  was  in  conformity  with 
the  constant  declarations  of  the  Conference. 

At  the  time  of  the  abridged  version  of  No- 
vember, 1 83 1,  there  was  no  idea  of  reviving  an 
ancient  clause,  which,  it  is  suggested,  it  had  been 
intended,  in  June,  to  leave  in  oblivion;  for  in 
the  month  of  April  its  adaptation  to  the  new 
regime  of  Belgium  had  already  been  provided 
for; 

Far  from  wishing  to  weaken  the  guarantee  of 
the  complete  neutrality  of  Belgium  by  any 
condition  making  the  eventual  violation  of  the 
territory  possible,  the  Powers  expressly  and 
categorically  subordinated  all  measures  what- 


The  Great  Powers  149 

ever  concerning  the  fortresses  to  respect  for 
this  neutrality; 

Not  only  did  the  Fortresses  Convention  and 
its  secret  clause  give  Germany  no  right  to  occupy 
a  square  millimetre  of  Belgium,  but  all  allusion 
to  occupation  had  been  suppressed  in  that 
same  secret  clause ; 

Far  from  laying  upon  Belgium  an  obligation  of 
a  right  of  way,  the  arrangements  of  November, 
1 83 1,  definitely  sanctioned  Belgium's  political 
status,  as  an  independent,  perpetually  neutral, 
perpetually  inviolable  State,  guaranteed  in  her 
independence,  her  neutrality,  and  her  inviolability 
by  the  formal  engagement  of  the  five  Powers. 

Such  is  the  testimony  of  history — that 
*'grande  indiscrete''  as  M.  Norden  says. 

It  must  still  be  explained,  in  order  to  be 
complete,  how  it  came  about  that,  on  the  15th 
of  November,  1831,  the  Conference  of  London 
adopted  a  different  text  from  that  of  the  26th 
of  June. 

No  document,  no  diplomatic  report  author- 


150  Belgium  and 

izes  us  to  presume  that  this  modification  was 
intentional;  it  appears  to  have  been  due  merely 
to  the  choice  of  words  adopted  for  the  final 
version. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  formula  upon  which 
the  agreement  between  the  plenipotentiaries 
had  been  established  on  the  26th  of  June,  1831 
(Treaty  of  the  Eighteen  Articles),  was  evidently 
inspired  by  that  which,  in  the  Treaty  of  Vienna 
of  the  20th  of  November,  1815,  had  recognized 
the  neutrality  of  Switzerland,  claimed  by  the 
delegates  of  that  country  as  a  national  tradition. 

In  1815,  it  had  been  stated: 
**The  Powers  make  a  formal  and  authentic 
recognition  of  the  perpetual  neutrality  of 
Switzerland  and  they  guarantee  her  integrity 
and  inviolability  within  her  new  boundaries. 
The  Powers  recognize  authentically  that  the 
neutrality  and  the  inviolability  of  Switzerland 
and  her  independence  of  all  foreign  influence 
are  in  the  true  interests  of  the  policy  of  all 
Europe." 


The  Great  Powers  151 

In  1 83 1  it  was  stated: 
**Art.  9. — Belgium,  within  her  boundaries  such 
as  they  will  be  traced  conformably  to  the  prin- 
ciples laid  down  in  the  present  preliminaries, 
will  form  a  perpetually  neutral  State.  The 
five  Powers,  without  wishing  to  interfere  with 
Belgium's  domestic  form  of  government,  guar- 
antee her  this  perpetual  neutrality,  as  well  as 
the  integrity  and  inviolability  of  her  territory 
within  the  boimdaries  mentioned  in  the  present 
article." 

There  is  nothing  surprising  in  this  analogy : 
one  of  the  chief  artificers  of  the  neutralization 
of  Belgium,  Talleyrand,  always  had  in  view, 
as  I  recalled  above  (p.  130),  to  place  Belgium 
in  the  same  position  as  Switzerland  as  regards 
the  effects  of  her  neutrality  in  the  pohtical 
system  of  Europe. 

But  five  months  later,  in  November,  the 
treaty  had  to  be  submitted  to  a  general  revision, 
because  the  Netherlands  refused  to  sanction  it, 
notably  by  reason  of  the  territorial  sacrifices 


152  Belgium  and 

it  imposed  upon  her.  In  this  revision,  Article 
9  disappeared  as  an  autonomous  article,  and 
the  stipulations  which  it  set  forth  became  the 
subject  of  two  new  articles,  namely: 

''Art.  7. — Belgium,  within  the  limits  speci- 
fied in  Art.  i,  2,  and  4,  shall  form  a  perpetually 
neutral  independent  State.  She' shall  be  bound 
to  observe  this  neutrality  towards  all  other 
States.'* 

''Art.  25. — The  Courts  of  Austria,  France, 
Great  Britain,  Prussia,  and  Russia  guarantee 
to  H.  M.  the  King  of  the  Belgians  the  execution 
of  all  the  preceding  articles. 

In  the  new  version  care  was  evidently  taken 
to  affirm  that  the  guarantee  given  by  the  Powers 
to  Belgium  applied  to  the  whole  of  the  stipula- 
tions, that  it  covered  all  the  aspects,  all  the 
attributes  of  the  new  State;  its  sovereignty, 
its  independence,  its  neutrality,  its  boundaries; 
with  this  intention,   the   guaranteeing   clause 


The  Great  Powers  153 

was  placed  at  the  end  of  the  text  (Article  25),  and 
the  formula  of  the  beginning,  which  was  inspired 
by  the  precedent  of  18 15,  was  abandoned.  It 
would  have  been  practically  impossible  to 
introduce,  in  the  new  wording,  the  expression 
''inviolable*'  in  Article  7,  for  inviolability  can 
only  be  evoked  at  the  moment  when  the  ques- 
tion of  guaranteeing  it  is  under  discussion; 
inviolability  does  not  exist  in  itself,  it  cannot 
be,  like  neutrality  and  independence,  a  special 
attribute  of  a  State;  we  cannot,  therefore, 
think  of  Art.  7  drawn  up  as  follows:  ''Belgium 
shall  form  an  independent  State,  inviolable, 
and  perpetually  neutral."  On  the  other  hand, 
it  was  superfluous  to  introduce  the  expression 
"inviolable  "  in  Art.  25,  for  there  was  no  shadow 
of  a  reason  for  placing  this  particular  aspect  of 
the  sovereignty  of  the  new  State  in  a  conspicu- 
ous light  in  this  article,  since  all  the  articles 
of  the  treaty  were  expressly  guaranteed,  with- 
out excepting  those  which  traced  the  boundaries 
of  the  territory;  now,  what  does  guaranteeing 


154  Belgium  and  the  Great  Powers 

boundaries  mean,  if  not  guaranteeing  their  in- 
violability at  the  same  time?  The  version  of 
November,  therefore,  appears  to  be  quite 
equivalent  to  that  of  June. 

Of  the  whole  of  M.  Norden's  exposition, 
then,  literally  nothing  remains,  but  a  lamentable 
attempt  to  sow  distrust  among  the  Belgians 
amidst  whom  he  dwells,  and  doubt  among  the 
neutrals,  who  make  their  sympathies  for  Bel- 
gium dependent  on  the  certainty  that  the  viola- 
tion of  her  neutrality  was  in  fact  an  act  contrary 
to  formal  engagements  sanctioned  by  treaties. 


LAST  WORDS 

Among  the  accusations  persistently  brought 
against  Belgium,  there  are  some  so  puerile 
that  we  feel  a  sort  of  embarrassment  in  having 
to  refute  them.  We  are  disconcerted  by  a 
publication  like  that  of  Dr.  GrasshoflF  {Belgiens 
Schuldy  quoted  above,  p.  76)  in  which  the  claims 
of  logic  and  good  sense  are  absolutely  ignored. 

In  order  to  prove  that  *' Belgium  had  violated 

her  neutrality  long  before  a  single   German 

soldier  had  trodden  her  soil''  (p.  6),  Dr.  Grass- 

hoff  contents  himself,  he  says,  *'with  two  facts 

so  important  as  to  defy  all  casuistry'*  (p.  7). 

I  have  already  dealt  with  the  first :  the  grievance 

against   the   Belgian    Government   of   having 

favoured  England  with  a  monopoly  of  mihtary 

information   (see  p.  77  et  seq.).     Here  is  the 

second:    ** Before    the   obligatory   entrance   of 
155 


156  Belgium  and 

the  German  troops  into  Belgium,  on  the  4th 
of  August,  1 9 14,  this  coimtry  had  already  opened 
her  frontiers  to  the  French  .  .  .  the  proofs  in 
this  connection,'*  says  the  author,*'  are  conclu- 
sive'' (pp.  7  and  11).     What  are  these  proofs? 

A  German,  residing  in  Belgium  as  a  shop- 
keeper and  a  workman,  saw  two  French  officers 
and  one  English  officer  at  Brussels  on  Sunday, 
the  26th  of  July;  on  the  29th  of  July  he  met 
eight  French  soldiers  and  *' heard  it  stated  that 
they  were  artillerymen*';  between  the  29th  of 
July  and  the  2d  of  August,  he  saw  an  aeroplane 
over  Brussels,  *'it  was  a  French  biplane  accord- 
ing to  his  supposition;  he  believed  so  because 
in  1 9 10  he  saw  many  French  machines  at  the 
Brussels  aviation  competition"  (p.  12).  Two 
persons,  whose  names  are  not  given,  declare  that 
*' according  to  the  inhabitants  of  three  Belgian 
localities  in  the  region  to  the  north  of  Lille, 
the  mobilization  of  the  Belgian  army  was  pro- 
claimed in  the  villages  as  early  as  the  30th  of 
July,  1914,  and  that  French  patrols  crossed  the 


The  Great  Powers  157 

frontier  on  the  ist  of  August  in  order  to  join 
the  Belgian  patrols  (p.  13).  A  French  soldier, 
now  a  prisoner,  of  the  8th  Hussars,  deposed 
that  his  regiment  had  crossed  the  Belgian  fron- 
tier on  the  2d  of  August,  taking  the  direction 
of  Bouillon  (p.  14) ;  another  of  the  21st  Dragoons 
without  fixing  any  date,  says  that  he  entered 
Belgium  on  the  morrow  of  the  French  mobiliza- 
tion {id.) ;  a  third,  of  the  28th  Dragoons,  cer- 
tifies that  the  frontier  was  crossed  on  the  31st 
of  July  in  the  evening  (p.  15).  I  take  no  notice 
of  the  inoffensive  information  of  a  Belgian 
newspaper,  which  confined  itself  to  announcing 
on  the  30th  of  July  *' important  movements  of 
French  troops  that  day  at  the  frontier,  as  well 
as  the  departure  of  seven  special  military  trains 
which  left  Charleville  on  the  28th  of  July  in 
the  direction  of  the  frontier''  (p.  17). 

I  have  already  replied  to  the  declarations  of 
civilians  concerning  the  presence  of  French 
officers  and  soldiers  in  the  streets  of  Brussels 
before  the  3d  of  August,   1914    {La  Belgique 


158  Belgium  and 

neutre  et  loyale,  p.  143  to  147),  and  I  then  con- 
cluded in  these  terms:  *'I  do  not  wish  to  affirm 
that  the  witnesses  whose  declarations  are  re- 
ported did  not  say  what  they  believed  to  be 
the  truth:  various  facts  which  are  known  to  me 
incline  me  rather  to  the  belief  that  mistakes 
were  made*'  (p.  146).  There  have  been,  in 
fact,  more  than  mistakes:  the  French  Govern- 
ment has  taken  the  trouble  to  have  precise 
information  collected  at  Brussels,  Liege,  and 
Namur,  which  proves  that  *'the  testimonies 
invoked  swarm  with  gross  errors  and  more  or 
less  voluntary  inaccuracies'*  (see  Grey  Book, 
ii..  No.  118,  2d  and  3d  Annexes). 

The  question  of  the  presence  of  French  mili- 
tary men  in  the  streets  of  certain  Belgian  towns 
before  the  hostilities  is  now  settled :  it  would  be 
puerile  to  revert  to  it. 

But,  among  the  declarations  reported  by  Dr. 
Grasshoff ,  there  are  three  which  have,  I  know, 
produced  a  real  impression  in  neutral  countries : 
I  refer  to  the  assertions  of  the  three  French 


The  Great  Powers  159 

soldiers  now  prisoners  in  Germany.  I  am  now 
in  a  position  to  reply  to  these. 

The  Grand  Headquarters  Staff  of  the  French 
armies  of  the  East  has  had  the  kindness  to 
state,  at  my  request,  in  a  formal  and  decisive 
manner,  which  were  the  actual  stations  bi  the 
French  units  accused  of  having  crossed  the 
Belgian  frontier  before  the  appeal  made  by 
Belgium,  on  the  4th  of  August,  to  the  military 
aid  of  the  guaranteeing  nations.  The  report 
of  the  Grand  Headquarters  Staff,  which  I  re- 
produce farther  on,  first  of  all  recalls  the  orders 
given  at  the  beginning  of  the  campaign  by  the 
French  military  authorities  in  obedience  to  the 
instructions  of  the  Government  of  the  Republic. 

On  the  4th  of  August,  the  Minister  of  War 
wrote: 

**  Germany  is  going  to  attempt  to  incite  us 
to  violate  Belgian  neutrality  by  means  of  false 
news.  Our  soldiers  are  rigorously  and  in  the 
most  formal  manner  forbidden,  until  a  contrary 
order  be  given,  to  penetrate,  even  as  patrols  or 


i6o  Belgium  and 

simply  as  horsemen,  into  the  territory  of  Belgium, 
and  all  aviators  are  likewise  forbidden  to  fly  over 
this  territory.  A  contrary  order  will  moreover 
be  given  only  when  the  Grand  Headquarters 
Staff  have  come  to  an  understanding  with 
the  Belgian  Government. — Signed:  Messimy,^^ 

It  was  on  the  5th  of  August  only  after  an  un- 
derstanding with  the  Belgian  Government,  that 
the  General  in  Chief  authorized  reconnoitring 
parties  of  cavalry  to  penetrate  into  Belgian  terri- 
tory, and  ordered  them  to  conduct  themselves 
there  as  in  a  friendly  and  alhed  country. 

Finally,  it  was  on  the  same  day,  the  5th  of 
August,  at  7  P.M.,  that  orders  were  given  by  the 
General  in  Chief  to  the  cavalry  corps  (region 
of  Charleville)  and  to  the  .  .  .th  division  of 
cavalry  (region  of  Mangiennes),  to  cross  the 
frontier  the  following  day,  the  6th  of  August  and 
to  take  the  direction  of  Neufchateau.  ^ 

'  The  note  addressed  by  Germany  to  the  Belgian  Govern- 
ment dates  from  the  2d  of  August;  the  violation  of  Belgian 
territory  by  the  German  troops  and  Belgium's  appeal  to  the 
Allied  Powers  took  place  on  the  4th  of  August. 


The  Great  Powers  i6i 

But  there  is  more:  an  examination  of  the 
declarations  invoked  by  Dr.  Grasshoff  brings 
to  light,  as  we  shall  see,  inexactitudes  of  dates, 
confusions  of  names  and  errors  of  fact  which 
definitively  deprive  them  of  all  value.  I  will 
let  the  Grand  Headquarters  Staff  speak  for 
itself: 

The  trooper,  Julien  Requet,  of  the  8th  Regi- 
ment of  Hussars,  is  said  to  have  stated  that  his 
regiment,  which  arrived  at  La  Neuville-aux- 
Toumeurs  in  the  night  of  the  31st  of  July  to 
the  1st  of  August,  stayed  there  two  days,  then 
proceeded  to  Donchery,  and  thence  to  Bouillon; 
according  to  Requet,  it  crossed  the  frontier 
'*on  the  2d  of  August,  1914,  about  5  p.m.  At 
Bouillon,  the  8th  Hussars,  he  says,  joined  the 
3d  Regiment  of  Hussars,  as  well  as  the  21st 
and  27th  Dragoons,  who  crossed  the  frontier, 
we  are  told'*  about  the  same  time. 

The  division  to  which  the  8th  Hussars  be- 
longed formed  part  of  the  cavalry  corps.     This 


i62  Belgium  and 

division  did  in  fact  arrive  at  its  concentration 
quarters  (region  of  Aubenton-Rumigny),  in 
the  morning  of  the  ist  of  August,  but  it  remained 
there  during  the  2d,  3rd,  and  4th  of  August, 

In  particular,  the  light  brigade,  to  which  the 
8th  Hussars  belonged,  camped  during  these 
three  days  in  the  region  of  Gifondelle,  Foulzy, 
Cuvillers,  La  Neuville-aux-Tourneurs  (S.  W. 
of  Rocroi). 

According  to  the  declarations  of  trooper 
Requet,  this  brigade  then  marched  upon  Don- 
chery;  this  march  took  place  on  the  5  th  of 
August;  in  the  evening  of  the  5th  of  August, 
it  camped  in  the  Donchery,  Dancourt,  Vrigne- 
sur-Meuse  zone. 

It  was  during  the  day  of  the  6th  of  August  that 
the  brigade  proceeded  from  Donchery  to  Bouil- 
lon by  Saint-Menges  and  Corbion;  it  was  there- 
fore  on  the  morning  of  that  day  and  not  on  the  2d 
of  August  that  the  frontier  was  crossed. 

The  3d  Hussars,  to  which  allusion  is  made 
in  trooper  Requet's  declaration,  formed  a  bri- 


The  Great  Powers^  163 

gade  with  the  8th  Hussars;  it  halted  and  moved 
together  with  this  regiment  from  the  ist  to  the 
6th  of  August. 

As  to  the  23d  and  27th  Dragoons,  they  formed 
part  of  another  division  of  the  cavalry  corps, 
which  left  the  region  of  Charleville  on  the  6th 
of  August y  and  that  day  proceeded  towards 
Paliseul  via  Givonne  and  Bouillon,  thus  crossing 
the  Belgian  frontier  on  the  very  same  date  as  the 
8th  Hussars, 

Trooper  Requet  may  have  really  met  these 
regiments  at  Bouillon,  but  not  on  the  date  which 
he  indicates. 

To  sum  up.  Trooper  Requet  has  reported 
facts  which  appear  to  be  correct,  but  the  dates 
of  which  are  erroneous. 

Besides,  certain  points  in  this  declaration 
are  ambiguous;  if  his  regiment  arrived  at  La 
Neuville  in  the  night  of  the  31st  of  July  to  the 
1st  of  August,  and  stayed  there  ''two  days," 
if  it  then  marched  towards  Donchery  (50  kilo- 
metres) and  afterwards  to  Bouillon,  how  was 


164  Belgium  and 

it  able  to  penetrate  into  Belgium  on  the  2d 
of  August? 

Trooper  Bailly  of  the  21st  Dragoons  is  said 
to  have  declared  that  on  the  morrow  of  the 
day  when  the  mobilization  was  announced  at 
Hirson,  his  regiment  had  left  its  covering  quar- 
ters (region  of  Bossus)  and  had  crossed  the 
Belgian  frontier  in  order  to  reach  Bouillon  the 
same  day.  The  5th  Dragoons  and  several 
regiments  of  Cuirassiers,  seen  by  trooper  Bailly 
at  Bouillon,  had,  according  to  him,  crossed  the 
frontier  on  the  same  date.  These  regiments 
would  consequently  have  penetrated  into  Bel- 
gium on  the  2d  of  August. 

The  2 1st  and  the  5th  Dragoons  constituted 
a  brigade  belonging  to  the  same  division  as  the 
8th  Hussars,  referred  to  above.  As  the  whole 
division  moved  forward  at  the  same  time,  what 
has  been  said  with  regard  to  the  8th  Hussars 
applies  in  a  general  manner  to  the  21st  and  3d 
Dragoons. 


The  Great  Powers  165 

Having  arrived  at  its  covering  positions  on 
the  1st  of  August y  this  brigade  camped  on  the 
1st,  2d,  3d,  and  4th  of  August  in  the  region 
of  Aubenton,  Hannapes,  Bossus-les-Rumigny, 
Antheny. 

On  the  5  th  it  moved  towards  Donchery  at  the 
same  time  as  the  brigade  of  Hussars  and  camped 
in  the  region  of  Vrigne-aux-Bois,  Vivier-au- 
Court,  Issancourt,  Lumes,  Villers.  On  the 
6th  of  August  only,  it  moved  towards  Bouillon 
under  the  same  conditions  as  the  brigade  of 
Hussars. 

Two  errors  must  therefore  be  pointed  out  in 
Trooper  Bailly 's  declarations : 

An  error  of  date:  the  21st  Dragoons  did  not 
leave  its  covering  quarters  on  the  morrow  of 
the  day  when  the  mobilization  must  have  been 
known  at  Hirson,  but  three  days  later  (5th  of 
August) ; 

An  error  of  fact:  this  regiment  did  not  move 
directly  from  Bossus  towards  Bouillon,  but 
towards  Lumes,  Vrignes-aux-Bois,  Issancourt, 


i66  Belgium  and 

a  region  which  it  left  on  the  next  day,  6th  of 
August,  in  order  to  proceed  to  Bouillon.  The 
march  of  the  5th  of  August  is  forgotten  in 
Trooper  Bailly's  deposition. 

According  to  Trooper  Cochard  of  the  28th 
Dragoons,  the  brigade  formed  by  the  28th  and 
30th  Dragoons  left  Sedan,  its  garrison,  on  the 
morning  of  the  31st  of  July,  moved  first  of  all 
towards  Mouzon  where  it  arrived  towards 
midday,  then  proceeded  in  the  evening  of  the 
same  day  via  Bazelles  and  La  Chapelle  to 
Bouillon,  where  the  28th  Dragoons  had  arrived, 
according  to  him,  on  the  31st  of  July  at  10 
o'clock  in  the  evening. 

On  the  following  day,  the  ist  of  August,  he 
declares  that  the  brigade  went  from  Bouillon 
towards  Arlon  via  Florenville,  Belle-Fontaine, 
and  Sainte-Marie,  '^having  on  the  ist  of  August 
covered  more  than  forty  kilometres  in  the 
direction  of  the  east,  exclusively  upon  Belgian 
territory.'' 


The  Great  Powers  167 

The  28th  Dragoons,  he  declares,  camped  in 
the  evening  of  the  1st  of  August  at  Saint- 
Laurent  near  Arlon. 

Between  Bouillon  and  Plorenville,  the  brigade 
is  said  to  have  met  the  4th  Hussars  and  the 
3d  and  6th  Cuirassiers  in  Belgian  territory. 

This  declaration,  which  would  tend  to  show 
that  the  whole  of  the  division  to  which  the 
28th  Dragoons  belonged  was  in  Belgian  terri- 
tory as  early  as  the  ist  of  August,  is  untrue  in 
every  particular. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  brigade  constituted 
by  the  28th  and  30th  Dragoons  did  really  leave 
Sedan  on  the  31st  of  July  by  the  Mouzon  high- 
road, but  it  pursued  its  route  via  Stenay  and 
Jametz  in  order  to  reach  its  covering  quarters 
upon  the  Othain.  The  squadron  to  which 
Trooper  Cochard  belonged  was  actually  stopped 
on  its  way  at  Mouzon  in  order  to  wait  there  for 
the  arrival  of  the  mounted  group  of  the  division 
coming  from  Charleville,  and  escort  it  to  its 
destination.     But    it    continued    its    journey. 


i68  Belgium  and 

with  this  group,  in  the  evening  of  the  31st  of 
July,  and  came  to  camp  at  Stenay.  On  the 
following  morning,  it  rejoined  the  division  in 
its  quarters.  This  squadron  did  not  return 
towards  Sedan  on  the  day  when  it  left  its  garri- 
son, any  more  than  did  the  bulk  of  the  regiment. 

The  brigade  arrived  upon  the  Othain  on  the 
31st  of  July  towards  10  o'clock.  The  28th 
Dragoons  camped  at  Saint-Laurent-sur-Authin 
(18  kilometres  S.  E.  of  Montmedy)  the  third 
Dragoons  at  Pillon  (5  kilometres  S.  E.  of 
Saint  Laurent). 

These  two  regiments  did  not  leave  their  en- 
campments till  the  morning  of  the  6th  of  August ; 
during  the  whole  of  this  period  the  outposts 
did  not  go  beyond  the  Othain.  On  the  6th  of 
August  the  division  set  forward  and  penetrated 
into  Belgium  by  Montmedy,  Thouelle,  Avioth, 
Fagny,  Belle-Fontaine.  The  28th  Dragoons 
formed  the  vanguard  of  the  division  and  at  the 
end  of  the  march  took  up  the  outposts  upon  the 
Semoy   at    Breuvanne    (15   kilometres   N.    of 


The  Great  Powers  169 

Virton) ;  the  30th  Dragoons  camped  at  Tintigny 
(S.  E.  of  Breuvanne), 

The  two  regiments  of  Cuirassiers  which 
Trooper  Cochard  claimed  to  have  met  on  the 
1st  of  August  between  Bouillon  and  Florenville 
were  on  this  date  encamped  upon  the  Othain. 

The  3d  Cuirassiers  did  indeed  leave  Vouziers, 
its  garrison,  in  the  afternoon  of  the  31st  of  July 
and  came  to  camp  that  day  at  BrieuUes-sur- 
Meuse  (5  kilometres  S.  of  Dun).  On  the  fol- 
lowing day  it  proceeded  to  Mangiennes  in  the 
Woevre,  where  it  remained  till  the  morning  of 
the  6th  of  August,  the  date  on  which  it  advanced 
into  Belgium  at  Jamoigne  (10  kilometres  E.  of 
Florenville)  by  the  same  route  as  the  28th  and 
30th  Dragoons. 

As  to  the  6th  Cuirassiers,  they  moved  forward 
under  similar  conditions. 

Leaving  Sainte-Menehould,  on  the  31st  of 
July  they  came  to  camp  at  Consenvoye  (15 
kilometres  N.  of  Verdun)  and  proceeded  on  the 
following  day,  the  ist  of  August,  to  Billy-sous- 


I70  Belgium  and 

Mangiennes  (7  kilometres  E.  of  Spincourt) 
where  they  remained  until  the  6th  of  August. 
On  the  6th  of  August,  they  followed  the  3d  Cuiras- 
siers in  their  march  towards  the  Belgian  frontier. 

It  is  therefore  untrue  that  the  3d  and  6th 
Cuirassiers  were  on  Belgian  territory  between 
Bouillon  and  Florenville  on  the  morning  of  the 
1st  of  August. 

To  sum  up:  Trooper  Cochard's  narrative  is  not 
in  accordance  with  facts  on  any  point,  except  as 
to  the  date  on  which  his  regiment  left  its  garrison 
and  the  direction  it  took  on  leaving. 

The  account  abounds  in  confusions  of  dates 
and  of  names:  Saint-Laurent-sur-Othain  be- 
comes Saint-Laurent  near  d'Arlon,  which  does 
not  exist.  A  certain  number  of  localities, 
quoted  at  random  from  recollection,  mark  the 
route  traced  by  Trooper  Cochard  for  his  bri- 
gade on  the  1st  of  August:  **Sainte  Cecile,  where 
the  regiment  camped  on  the  8th  of  August, 
Chassepierre  traversed  the  same  day,  Floren- 
ville and  Pin  traversed  or  seen  almost  every 


The  Great  Powers  171 

day  from  the  6th  to  the  i8th  of  August;  Saint- 
Vincent,  occupied  by  the  28th  Dragoons  on  the 
7th  of  August;  Belle-Fontaine  upon  the  march 
of  the  entry  into  Belgium  on  the  6th  of  August " 
(Report  of  the  Colonel  commanding  the  28th 
Dragoons). 

Further,  we  find  in  Trooper  Cochard's  decla- 
rations facts  invented  in  all  their  details;  thus 
the  Bazeilles-La  Chapelle-Bouillon  route  by 
which,  according  to  him,  the  28th  Dragoons 
penetrated  into  Belgium  is  25  kilometres  distant 
from  that  really  followed  by  this  regiment 
(Montmedy-Avioth-Belle-Fontaine). 

Further,  the  cantonment  occupied,  according 
to  him  by  his  regiment  at  Bouillon  in  the  evening 
of  the  31st  of  July,  cannot  be  attributed  to  a 
confusion  on  his  part,  for  *' never  at  any  moment 
did  a  unit  of  the  28th  Dragoons  stay  at  Bouillon 
or  go  through  this  town'*  (Report  of  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel commanding  the  28th  Dragoons). 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  route  also 
imagined  by  him — and  in  a  very  precise  man- 


172  Belgium  and 

ner — for  the  march  of  his  regiment  on  the  1st 
of  August  from  Bouillon  to  Arlon,  etc. 

Cochard's  declarations  would  moreover  be 
suspect  even  were  they  not  contradicted  by  the 
facts. 

The  information  furnished  as  to  this  Trooper 
by  his  corps-commander  is,  in  fact,  bad:  ''A 
mediocre  soldier,  of  limited  intelligence,  of  a  rude 
nature,  and  a  very  independent  and  sullen  char- 
acter; Cochard  answered  exactly  to  the  poacher 
type  of  the  man  of  the  woods,  which  he  boasted  of 
being,'' 

The  inaccuracy  of  his  information  applied 
even  to  his  functions:  employed  as  a  cyclist 
in  the  3d  squadron  of  the  28th  Dragoons,  he 
was  never  on  horseback  in  the  ranks,  as  he 
implies  (§1-6-7  of  his  declaration). 

It  is  important  to  add  that  his  disappearance 
on  the  2 2d  of  August  has  remained  suspicious, 
and  gave  rise  to  the  most  unfavourable  interpreta- 
tions of  his  conduct  on  the  part  of  his  superiors. 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  add  a  word  to 


The  Great  Powers  173 

an  account,  so  full  of  facts  and  of  so  grave  a 
character. 

Dr.  Grasshoff's  *' convincing''  proofs  have 
been  abundantly  utilized  by  our  accusers: 
They  found  in  them  an  unhoped  for  justifica- 
tion of  their  imputation  that  Belgium  had  pre- 
maturely opened  her  frontiers  to  the  French 
troops.  Since  they  insist,  I  will  now  bring 
forward  a  fact  which  will  doubtless  reduce  them 
to  silence. 

The  plan  of  concentration  of  the  Belgian 
army  in  the  event  of  mobilization,  that  is  to 
say,  the  ordering  of  the  positions  to  be  occupied 
by  the  different  units  on  the  eve  of  a  conflict, 
had  been  fixed  in  1913,  at  the  time  of  the  mili- 
tary reorganization.  Now,  in  this  plan,  how 
had  the  positions  of  concentration  of  the  Bel- 
gian forces  been  chosen  ?  The  official  report  of 
the  army  command  {The  Action  of  the  Belgian 
army  from  the  31st  of  July  to  thejist  of  December, 
iQi4y  Chapelot,  Paris,  1915)  replies  in  formal 


174  Belgium  and 

terms  (p.  2  and  see  the  sketch  on  the  opposite 
page). 

"The  positions  of  concentration  had  been 
chosen  with  a  view  to  ensuring  the  defence  of 
the  territory,  while  strictly  conforming  to  the 
obligations  imposed  on  Belgium  by  her  neutral- 
ity, as  defined  by  the  treaties  of  1839. 

''In  fact  (apart  from  the  2d  and  6th  divisions 
and  the  cavalry  division,  which  remained  at 
Antwerp  and  Brussels),  the  1st,  3d,  4th,  and 
5th  divisions  filled  the  r61e  of  vanguard  divisions 
and  were  placed  respectively  in  each  of  the 
directions  from  which  danger  could  threaten 
Belgium: 

"The  1st  Division,  or  Flanders  division,  faced 
England; 

"The  3d  Division,  or  Lifege  division,  faced 
Germany; 

"The  4th  and  5th  Divisions,  looked  towards 
Prance,  the  4th  being  destined  to  face  an  attack 
upon  Namur,  the  5th  an  attack  which  should 
debouch  from  Maubeuge-Lille. 


The  Great  Powers 


175 


p    R    o   s    8    e 


176  Belgium  and 

"Each  of  these  vanguard  divisions  was  en- 
trusted with  the  task  of  furnishing  the  first 
resistance  and,  by  this  very  resistance,  of  giving 
time  to  transport  the  other  five  divisions  to  the 
threatened  part  of  the  territory. 

''Belgium's  defensive  system  included,  be- 
sides, three  fortified  towns:  Antwerp,  consti- 
tuting an  entrenched  camp  and  place  of  refuge, 
Liege  and  Namur  serving  as  halting  places, 
bridge-heads,  and  supporting  points:  the  army 
had  therefore  to  be  divided  into  garrison  troops 
and  field  troops;  out  of  the  fifteen  miUtia  classes 
called  to  the  colours,  the  last  seven  were  re- 
served for  the  service  of  the  fortresses,  and  the 
first  eight  were  assigned  to  the  army  in  the 
field." 

Such  were  the  arrangements  already  pre- 
scribed before  the  war.  They  were  strictly 
observed  at  the  moment  of  the  mobilization 
and,  on  the  morning  of  the  ist  of  August,  the 
musterings  were  effected  as  indicated  upon  the 
sketch. 


The  Great  Powers  177 

Now — and  here  we  come  to  the  decisive  fact 
— the  concentration  was  not  modified  after  the 
Belgian  Government  had  received  Germany's 
note  demanding  a  free  passage  for  her  troops, 
on  Sunday  the  2d  of  August,  at  7  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  that  is  to  say,  the  four  vanguard  divi- 
sions kept  their  respective  positions,  one  facing 
England,  two  facing  France  (two,  because  of 
the  extent  of  the  frontier  on  that  side),  one  only 
facing  Germany.  We  read  in  fact  in  the  oflEicial 
report: 

*'The  German  Note  of  the  2d  of  August,  it 
must  be  remarked,  had  no  immediate  influence 
upon  the  concentration  of  the  army,  which 
remained  disposed  upon  the  territory  according 
to  the  military  exigencies  imposed  by  the 
neutrality  of  the  country;  orders  were  given  to 
the  posts  placed  at  all  the  frontiers,  to  open  fire 
on  any  foreign  troops  entering  Belgium,'' 

And  the  report  adds:  '*This  attitude  of  the 
high  command  reflected  faithfully  the  political 
attitude  adopted  by  the  King's  Government; 


178  Belgium  and 

the  latter  had,  in  fact,  replied  to  the  German 
Note,  on  the  one  hand,  that  it  would  repel  by 
all  the  means  in  its  power  any  attack  made  by 
Germany  on  Belgium's  rights;  on  the  other 
hand,  that  if,  contrary  to  all  expectation,  a 
violation  of  Belgian  neutrality  should  be  com- 
mitted by  France,  Belgium  would  carry  out 
all  her  international  duties,  and  that  her  army 
would  offer  the  most  vigorous  resistance  to  the 
invader.'* 

It  was  only  in  the  night  of  the  3d  to  the  4th 
of  August,  when  it  had  become  certain  that  the 
German  troops  meant  to  cross  Belgium  by 
force,  that  the  Commander-in-Chief  ordered 
the  execution  of  the  measures  made  necessary 
by  the  new  situation. 

''Then  only,''  states  the  report,  *' orders  were 
given  to  destroy  the  great  artificial  works  upon 
the  lines  of  communication  susceptible  of  being 
utilized  by  the  German  troops.  The  military 
governors  of  the  provinces  were  warned  hence- 
forth not  to  consider  the  movements  of  French 


The  Great  Powers  179 

troops  on  Belgian  territory  as  acts  of  violation  of 
neutrality, 

*' Conformably  to  the  plan  of  defence,  the 
3d  Division  was  to  resist  the  enemy,  supported 
by  the  fortified  position  of  Li^ge;  under  its 
protection,  the  other  divisions  were  to  proceed 
in  the  direction  of  the  invader,  with  the  excep- 
tion, however,  of  the  Namur  Division  (the  4th), 
which  was  entrusted  with  the  protection  of  this 
fortress;  the  ist  Division  was  directed  from 
Ghent  to  Tirlemont*  the  2d  from  Antwerp  to 
Louvain;  the  5th  from  Mons  to  Perwez;  the 
6th  from  Brussels  to  Wavre.  These  transports 
were  to  be  covered:  ist,  by  the  cavalry  division, 
which,  concentrated  at  Gembloux,  was  to  pro- 
ceed to  Waremme;  2d,  by  a  mixed  brigade  of  the 
3d  Division,  directed  toward  Tongres;  3d,  by  a 
mixed  brigade  of  the  4th  Division  sent  to  Huy. 

*'The  concentration  movements,  begun  on  the 
1st  of  August,  ended  on  the  following  day; 
they  were  carried  out  with  rapidity  and  regular- 
ity, partly  by  road,  partly  by  railway. 


i8o  Belgium  and 

"The  King,  by  virtue  of  the  constitution, 
assumed  the  supreme  command  of  the  army. 

"On  the  6th  of  August,  in  the  morning,  the 
army  was  ready  to  move  forward  with  all  its 
convoys/' 

In  view  of  these  facts,  I  say  .to  our  accusers : 
when  we  consider  a  little  country  suddenly 
drawn  into  a  conflict  the  stake  of  which  was  the 
loss  of  its  independence;  when  we  see,  that  at 
the  moment  when  it  was  no  longer  a  question 
of  adopting  political  attitudes  which  are  prone 
to  be  disregarded,  but  of  taking  resolutions 
which  endanger  the  life  of  a  nation,  it  remained 
so  completely  faithful  to  its  obligations  and  so 
absolutely  free  from  all  foreign  tutelage,  that 
it  organized  its  supreme  defence  from  the  one 
and  single  point  of  view  of  its  own  interests — 
then,  if  we  deny  it  the  homage  of  esteem  which 
we  owe  to  all  who  do  their  duty,  we  should  pass 
on  and  be  silent. 

It  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  return  to  the 
question  of  the  conduct  of  the  German  troops  in 


The  Great  Powers  i8i 

Belgium  and  to  the  alleged  popular  war  {Volks- 
krieg)  which  they  say  they  had  to  repress.  A 
White  Book,  of  more  than  three  hundred  pages 
{Die  volkerrechtswidrige  Fiihrung  des  belgischen 
Volkskriegs),  has  been  devoted  to  this.  Dr. 
Grasshoff  was  among  those  who  collected  the 
depositions  gathered  together  in  it.  It  is  that 
which  has  enabled  him  to  reserve  for  these 
matters  four-fifths  of  the  pamphlet  to  which 
I  have  referred  above. 

I  will  confine  myself  here  to  one  single  re- 
mark, as  the  German  White  Book  is  to  be  the 
object  of  a  detailed  refutation  from  Belgium  in 
the  near  future. 

In  the  official  German  message  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  on  the  14th  of  August, 
it  was  stated : 

"The  Belgian  Government  has  publicly 
encouraged  the  civil  population  to  make  war  and 
it  had  long  ago  organized  this  participation." 

Dr.  Grasshoff  now  takes  upon  himself,  by 
publishing    a    certain    number    of    documents 


i82  Belgium  and 

emanating  from  the  Belgian  authorities,  to 
show  the  utter  lack  of  foundation  for  this  in- 
credible accusation :  the  royal  decree  calling  the 
non-active  Civic  Guard  to  service  (p.  43), 
the  circulars  of  the  Home  Secretary  {id.),  of  the 
Governor  of  Brabant  (p.  48),  of  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  of  the  Civic  Guard  of  the  provinces 
of  Antwerp  and  of  Brabant  (p.  45),  the  deposi- 
tions of  Belgian  notables  (p.  46-47),  or  of  bur- 
gomasters (p.  51),  all  the  official  documents, 
including  the  facsimiles  of  administrative  tele- 
grams, which  Dr.  Grasshoff  has  collected,  con- 
firm without  any  possible  doubt  the  thing  so 
evident  to  every  fair-minded  person :  the  Belgian 
Government,  from  the  first  hours,  took  all  the 
measures  in  its  power  to  ensure  the  passivity  of 
the  population  (see  La  Belgigue  neutre  et  loyale,  p. 
197-229). 

The  population  was  hostile!  the  press  was 
impassioned !  cries  Dr.  Grasshoff.  Whose  fault 
was  that?  I  ask.  The  accusation  treats  lightly 
the  only  two  facts  which  count,  namely,  first 


The  Great  Powers  183 

of  all  the  indignation — this  is  the  only  word  for 
it — felt  by  all  Belgians  on  Monday  the  3d  of 
August,  when  they  learned  that  Germany,  not 
satisfied  with  violating  a  formal  engagement, 
threatened  them  with  the  loss  of  their  independ- 
ence if  they  were  not  willing  to  act  in  a  man- 
ner contrary  to  their  duty  and  to  their  vital 
interests;  then  the  horror — the  word  is  not 
strong  enough — which  these  same  Belgians  felt 
after  the  6th  of  August,  when  they  heard  of 
the  first  reprisals  of  the  German  troops  in 
Belgium. 

As  to  all  the  depositions  of  Germans,  col- 
lected by  Germans,  which  the  White  Book 
marshals  to  prove  that  shots  were  fired  by 
Belgians  on  the  German  troops,  they  are  value- 
less as  evidence,  devoid  of  probative  force: 
quite  recently,  a  strictly  scientific  examination, 
based  upon  the  German  sources  alone,  has 
shown  how  the  stories  which  are  at  the  bottom 
of  these  testimonies  depend  for  their  existence 
upon  legend,  and  were  slowly  elaborated   to 


i84  Belgium  and 

suit  leading  themes,  from  slight  incidents,  dis- 
figured and  exaggerated  in  the  coiirse  of  trans- 
mission (see  Van  Langenhove:  Comment  nait 
un  Cycle  de  Legendes;  Franc-tireurs  et  Atrocites 
tn  BelgiquCy  1916).  Then  again  we  must 
plead  for  a  suspension  of  judgment:  avdiatur  et 
altera  pars!  Belgians  subject  to  the  occupier 
might  reply,  but  they  cannot  make  themselves 
heard. 

But  we  may,  nevertheless,  even  now  ask  the 
readers  of  the  White  Book  or  of  Dr.  Grasshoff's 
pamphlet,  if  they  have  foimd  anjrwhere  in  these 
a  justification  or  an  excuse  for  the  method  of 
collective  reprisals. 

''No  collective  penalty,  pecuniary  or  otherwise ^ 
may  be  decreed  against  the  populations  hy  reason 
of  individual  acts  for  which  they  could  not  be 
considered  as  collectively  responsible,'' 

This  all  the  nations,  including  Germany, 
had  decided  at  the  second  Hague  Conference. 

Throughout  the  month  of  August,  1914,  a 
system    of   war    exactly   the    reverse    of    this 


The  Great  Powers  185 

prescription  was  let  loose  upon  my  country. 
It  was  der  schneidig  gefilhrte  Krieg,  war 
carried  on  in  trenchant  fashion,  which  Gen- 
eral von  Hartmann  had  but  recently  opposed 
to  war  carried  on  with  some  consideration  for 
humanity. 

For  all  those  who  think  that,  even  when 
war  is  raging,  humanity  and  equity  retain  their 
rights,  this  system  is  execrable.  No  apology 
for  it  has  yet  been  attempted.  No  apology 
will  be  attempted.  It  belongs  to  those  things 
which  are  done,  but  which  are  spoken  of  only  to 
be  condemned. 

And  now  I  conclude. 

For  eighteen  months  innocent  Belgium  has 
been  suffering,  in  expiation  of  misdeeds  which 
she  never  committed  and  of  which  her  enemies 
accused  her  only  after  having  struck  her,  in 
order  to  justify  themselves  to  the  world :  if  there 
are  still  in  Germany  men  who  have  the  courage 
to  imagine   fresh   grievances   against   her,    let 


1 86  Belgium  and  the  Great  Powers 

them  speak!  They  will  not  wear  out  the  pa- 
tience of  the  Belgians,  nor  their  determination 
to  defend  their  patrimony  of  honour  and  of 
loyalty. 


THE  END 


Jl  Selection  from  the 
Catalogue  of 

C.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


Cpmplote  Catalogues  «•»! 
on  applloatioa 


Belgium: 

Neutral  and  Loyal 

The  War  of  1914 

By 
Emile  Waxweiler 

Director  of  the  Solvay  Institute  of  Sociology  at  Bruuelc, 
Member  of  the  Acadfmie  Royale  of  Belgium 

/2^    $L25 

In  order  to  clarify  opinion  and  to  correct 
wrong  judgment,  the  author  has  not  deemed  it 
superfluous  to  weigh  in  the  balance  all  the  im- 
putations that  have  been  made  against  Belgium, 
even  to  the  inclusion  of  those  that  do  violence  to 
common  sense.  There  are  five  chapters,  with 
the  following  titles:  "Up  to  7  P.M.  of  August 
2d,"  "To  Be  or  Not  To  Be,'*  "  Belgian  Neutral- 
ity,'* "Imputations  against  the  Loyalty  of 
Belgium,*'  "  German  Rules  of  Waging  War  and 
their  Application  to  Belgium.'' 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


The 
War  and  Humanity 

By 
James  M.  Beck 

Former  AMutant  Attorney-General  of  the  U.  S. 
Author  of  "The  Evidence  in  the  Case" 


ir. 

The  hundreds  of  thousands  of  readers  who 
were  enthusiastic  over  "  The  Evidence  in  the 
Case  "  will  welcome  this  keen  "  Analysis  of 
the  Rights  and  Immunities  of  Non-Combatants 
and  of  the  Duty  of  the  United  States."  The 
subjects  considered  are :  "  The  Submarine 
Controversy/'  "The  Case  of  Edith  Cavell," 
"  The  Foreign  Policy  of  George  Washington/' 
"Where  There  Is  No  Vision."  The  book 
includes  as  an  appendix  the  letter  of  Cardinal 
Mercier  bearing  upon  the  execution  of  Edith 
Cavell. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


War,  Peace,  and  the 
Future 

By  Ellen  Key 

Author  of 
"Love  and  Marriage,"  "The  Century  of  the  Chfld,''  etc. 

At  the  end  of  August,  1914,  Ellen  Key 
was  asked:  "In  what  way  can  humanity 
prevent  war  ?  "  "  Is  it,  according  to  your 
opinion,  possible,  and  if  so,  by  what 
means?" 

The  new  book  is  a  detailed  answer 
to  that  inquiry.  The  author  tackles 
the  problem  with  characteristic  thorough- 
ness and  brings  it  into  relation  with  edu- 
cation and  the  needed  readjustment  of 
traditional  viewpoints. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


Treitschke 

12\    $1.50 

The  Writings  of  Bemhardi's  Teacher, 

Heinrich  von  Treitschke,  Together 

with  a  Life,  by  His  Close 

Friend,  Adolf  Hausrath 

The  works  of  this  great  German  historian 
have  shaped  the  present  policy  of  Germany  in 
its  attempt  to  secure  a  dominating  influence  in 
Europe  and  throughout  the  world.  The  follow- 
ing is  a  brief  summary  of  the  subjects  presented 
in  this  distinctive  work  : 

I.  Treitschke's  Life  and  Work,  by  Adolf 
Hausrath.  2.  The  Army.  3.  International  Law. 
4.  German  Colonization.  5.  The  Two  Emperors. 
6.  In  Memory  of  the  Great  War.  7.  Germany 
and  the  Neutral  States.  8.  Austria  and  the 
German  Emperor.  9.  Russia  from  the  German 
Point  of  View.     10.  On  Liberty. 

Treitschke  was  a  close  friend  of  Bismarck,  and 
his  list  of  pupils  include  the  political  and  military 
leaders  of  the  present  generation,  such  as  the 
Emperor  William,  Bernhardi,  and  others. 

Lord  Acton  says  of  Treitschke:  "He  is  the 
one  writer  of  history  who  is  more  brilliant  and 
more  powerful  than  Droysen;  and  he  writes 
with  the  force  and  incisiveness  of  Mommsen, 
but  he  concerns  himself  with  the  problems  of 
the  present  day,  problems  that  are  still  demand- 
ing solution." 


New  York  G*  P.  Putnam's  Sons  London 


I,D21'10«»'- 


YB  33873 


j^^ 


86626 


\ 


l-.TSTOPYO 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORNIA  UBRARY 


Ill 

illli'lliii 
it 


ijl 


